For the First Time, You Can Open Your Eyes
by vertigoSWAY
Summary: A collection of Torchwood oneshots/drabbles. Chapter 59 onwards, mostly post CoE
1. He Could Open His Eyes

**Oneshot title from OPEN UP YOUR EYES by DAUGHTRY. If you haven't heard this song, I suggest you search it up! I think it matches perfect with the CoE problem we all hate, but realize is necessary.**

**Present tense fic.**

Jack sends the signal and gazes sorrowfully at Gwen's face and her tears. In a few seconds, he'll be gone… And this time he really wouldn't be back. The blue light swirls around him as he's transported into space and across the galaxy.

Except he's not where he expected be, but he's where he should be.

The Cardiff night life and hillside is immediately replaced with a mushroom cloud shaped panel. An orange-yellowy light illuminates the room while blue accents the control panel. Jack knows where he is. And he knows that even after all that waiting and hoping, this is honestly, truly, sincerely, _definitely_ the last place that he wants to be.

The figure at the controls looks up in slight surprise. He's regenerated, past what Jack recognizes to be the time traveler he'd once accompanied –once loved. Those innocent-looking eyes that deny having played a part Earth's history six months ago made the anger inside Captain Jack Harkness boil and explode. He screams. He yells. He hits. He corners the Doctor to the TARDIS's walls. Jack's fists bruise themselves on the interior of the exterior of the Gallifreyan time ship. He accuses. _Where were you?!_ He punches the Doctor square the in the jaw.

The suddenly, the strength leaves Jack. It's just like Samson's hair being cut off. He slumps down, right then and there, against the wall in tears. The immortal man hasn't cried in six months. He's willed himself not to. In that half year, he'd forced himself to be void of as much as emotion as possible. Just like a Dalek. The alien species that had killed him. Just like a Cyberman. The robotic androids that had once devastated his lover's life. His _dead_ lover's life.

Jack feels arms wrap around him, trying to comfort him. The captain should be shrugging the Time Lord off, but he can't bring himself to. He just needs to forget for the moment. He just needs to sink himself in a fake fantastical world. A world where he was already dead. Where Rose hadn't come back and saved him. He adored the wonderful lady with all his heart, but that was the single action Jack could never bring himself to forgive her for.

The TARDIS senses his pain. Even thought it realizes that Jack is a fact –a fixed point in time, _wrong_- it reaches out to him. The man can imagine tendrils of light flowing through his mind. It shows him what he wants to see: Jack happy with Ianto –forever. It's almost as if the TARDIS is reassuring him that it would happen. But the immortal knows better.

Jack loves Ianto. Loves. Present tense. He still does, even though the Welshman is gone. Jack has loved many others before, but there was something about Ianto that set him apart. Was it the fact that this man accepted him for whom he was and treated him like he was just a normal human being? Yes. Yes. That was it.

The Doctor whispers a sentence in Jack's year. It's in Jack's own native Boeshane tongue, although that was probably just the TARDIS translating it for him on purpose. In English, it meant "I've made things right."

Just then, someone else steps into the main control room. Jack looks up from his wet hands and through his misty eyes. But that figure of a man in unmistakable. The captain dares not question if what he perceives as the reality is truly reality. He just stands up and captures a man in a kiss bursting with emotions. Relief. Happiness. Fear. Jack's sobs continue through the kiss, shaking it as it is being returned. Jack breaks apart and looks into those beautiful grey-bluish eyes that he's memorized. He whispers three words. "I love you." And that is all that's needed for the moment.

Jack continues to cry as he pulls his lover in, suffocating any space that is between them. He wraps his arms around the other man and resting his head on the shoulder. The tears dampen the black waistcoat of the other man, but neither of them seems to care at the moment.

Suddenly, Jack realizes what the TARDIS was showing him. It _was_ the consciousness of a time ship after all. It was showing him his future. With his beloved Ianto. Suddenly, Jack understands. Ianto's like him now, doomed to live for all eternity. Alone. Except, there were two of them now. Never alone. Never going to be alone.

Tonight, Jack just wants to lie in his old TARDIS room with Ianto. No sex tonight. Just contemplation and the pure comfort of feeling each. Jack has been many places and traveled far. For a long time, he's stared into the sun to blind himself from the curse of losing everyone he loved. Everyone he cared about. But now, he will realize one thing.

**For the first time, he could open his eyes.**


	2. Christmas Forever

It was snowing. Snowing in Cardiff. Snow. Snow. Snow. On the 21st of December. Some kind of temporal atmospheric disturbance from the ATMOS incident. But all the same, it was snowing.

At first, everything turned out fine. The tiny white rain fell to the ground. The entire Torchwood team was mesmerized, taking time off their jobs just to enjoy the snow. That was, of course, until Jack disturbed it by mentioning that it probably contained traces of the clone feed that had been released into the air.

After that, they had all went inside for a hot coffee and some slack off time in the boardroom. They laughed and swapped stories. Even Owen was slightly willing to participate. Of course, that was a little out of character for him, but everyone got over it after a while.

It wasn't until Gwen had called Rhys that they realized they'd been snowed in. On top of that, the snow probably couldn't be cleared away until Christmas Day. Gwen apologized repeatedly to her fiancée that she was sorry she couldn't be there. The rest of the team could hear Rhys consoling her that it was alright. When she finally hung up the phone, she looked at the rest of the team expectantly.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"We celebrate!" Tosh exclaimed.

"Oh great, Christmas cheer," Owen muttered.

"Hey! What happened to that out-of-character Owen?" Jack teased. "I liked him a lot better."

"Reserved for special occasions. Of course, a raise would-"

"In your dreams."

"We could play a game," Gwen suggested.

"Yeah, like what?" Owen asked.

The woman shrugged. "Cards?"

"You're being serious?"

"Do _you_ have a better suggestion? And please don't go off about some medical procedure no one really cares about."

"Careful," Ianto warned. "Whatever he knows my save your life one day."

"We could target practice…" Owen said. Everyone else just stared at him. "What?"

"We're stuck in our underground headquarters and you want to target practice?" Jack asked slowly.

"Well…" Owen shrugged. "Improve aim?"

Everyone else just gaped again.

"Fine," Owen said, slapping the table. "I bet Jack five quid I could put a bullet in his head from across the Hub."

"Whoa," Jack started. "You are _not_ shooting at me."

"Ten."

"That'd be abusing my immortality."

"Twenty."

"Don't," Ianto cut in. That could have been predicted. Every time Jack died or got hurt, Ianto's heart leapt a little. What if this time Jack didn't come back? After a few times of dying, Jack had gotten careless of himself. A bullet didn't mean much but pain. He didn't watch out for the guns as much as a regular human would have.

Jack reached over to Ianto, as if reading the archivist's mind. He planted a soft kiss on his lips. "I'll be fine," he assured. "Twenty," Jack confirmed pointing at Owen and they all headed down to the first floor of the Hub.

Jack rummaged his grey RAF coat for his revolved and tossed it nonchalantly to Owen. The medic stepped back, startled a bit, but caught the gun at the last second. Jack positioned himself across the Hub as Owen poised himself in front of the cog door to shoot. "Center of my forehead," Jack added, seeing if Owen would add to the challenge.

"Then what else do I get besides twenty?" Owen asked. Jack merely shrugged.

"Order him around for the day," Gwen suggested.

"No!" Jack winced. "That means if I win, that I earn what I already get to do."

"That just means you're afraid I'll win," Owen taunted.

Jack gave in and nodded his head. He leaned slightly against the railing and waited to hear Owen cock the gun and pull the trigger. The last thing he felt was the bullet burying itself above his right eye.

The first thing Jack saw when he opened his eyes was Ianto's beautiful face staring back at him, eyes filled with worry. Jack gave one of his cheeky smiles and planted a kiss on the other man's lips. "Who won?" Jack asked, feeling the blood on his head. He then nodded in understanding as he saw Owen take out his wallet and fish out twenty quid.

"Twenty quid raise on your next paycheck," Jack said, taking the money.

Owen stared skeptically. That meant that he didn't really lose anything. Since when did Jack become the saint?

The evening continued on. At periods, silence filled the super secret alien-fighting headquarters. Other times, they were all laughing and enjoying themselves. For some reason, Ianto's coffee tasted especially brilliant that night. He even put a little hint of peppermint, leaving that spicy aftertaste.

The evening ended with everyone dancing along to whatever Christmas song was playing on the radio. Tosh twirled Owen around, seemingly against his will. The man would _never_ admit that he was having a good time. Gwen laughed and pointed as Ianto walked over to his boss who was leaning on the doorframe of the office.

Jack gave a heartwarming smile and exhaled deeply as Ianto rested his head on Jack's shoulder. "This is how it should always be…" the immortal captain whispered before planting a long kiss on Ianto's lips. Owen grumbled silently at the spectacle as Tosh and Gwen giggled softly.

Yes.

This is how it should always be…

**Forever**


	3. Just a Dream

It was two weeks after the day she turned eighteen.  
All dressed in white,  
Goin' to the church that night.

_**Did I even have the guts? Did I? I don't think I did. But I had to. Even if I wasn't noticed. I owed him that much.**_

She had his box of letters in the passenger seat.  
Sixpence in a shoe:  
Something borrowed, something blue.  
And when the church doors opened up wide  
She put her veil down  
Trying to hide the tears.  
Oh she just couldn't believe it.

_**I couldn't. I couldn't. Not him. Please, just anyone but him.**_

She heard trumpets from the military band  
And the flowers fell out of her hand.

_**The world's always ending. Well it did. Because my world had ended.**_**  
**

Baby why'd you leave me?  
Why'd you have to go?  
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know.

_**But we both knew it might end like this. I just shut it out. There was never such a possibility.**_

I can't even breathe.

_**Can't even think. I might as well die.**_

It's like I'm looking from a distance,  
Standing in the background.  
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now.

_**Never again. Never, never again. Not that face, those lips, that touch. He'll just be like everyone else I've ever cared for and will ever care for. Just dust in the wind, ashes in the snow.**_

This can't be happening to me  
This is just a dream.

_**When I wake up tomorrow, he'll be next to me.**_

The preacher man said let us bow our heads and pray.  
Lord please lift his soul, and heal this hurt.

_**Decades of hurt. Centuries. Millennia. Eons. Eternity of hurt. Forevermore and nevermore. It would never heal. For the others maybe, but not for me. Living each day with the guilt and pain. The hurt. Because it was my fault.**_

Then the congregation all stood up and sang the saddest song that she ever heard.  
Then they handed her a folded up flag.  
And she held on to all she had left of him.  
Oh, and what could have been.

_**And it could have been so much more. So so much. He could have lived a full life. Grown old with gray hair and wrinkles.**_

And then the guns rang one last shot  
And it felt like a bullet in her heart

_**And I died again. The bullet in the heart killed me one last time, forever.**_

Baby why'd you leave me?  
Why'd you have to go?  
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know.

_**Forever for him and if time was nice, maybe me. But, "no one in Torchwood ever lives to draw their pension do they?"**_

I can't even breathe.

_**Not now, when I'm unnoticeable at the service, standing in the aisle. She's looking at me. The black haired Welsh native and her husband are looking at me. They know no one else sees me. They know no one else sees my pain.**_

It's like I'm looking from a distance,  
Standing in the background.

_**Just standing there. Still, like a tree.**_

Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now.  
This can't be happening to me.  
This is just a dream.

_**But when I wake up from death, I know that's not true.**_

Oh, baby why'd you leave me?  
Why'd you have to go?  
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know.  
Oh, now I'll never know.

_**So I bend down above his body. I look at the face of this. The beautiful, sleeping face. Marvelous even in death. I look and I give him my last parting gift. A kiss and four words. "I love you cariad."**_

It's like I'm looking from a distance,  
Standing in the background  
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now.  
This can't be happening to me.  
This is just a dream.

_**And they look at me, that couple. We lock eyes and I see the tears in theirs like they see the tears in mine. She gives a subtle salute and I nod.**_

_**Then I'm gone.**_

Oh, this is just a dream.  
Just a dream…  
_**Don't I wish?**_


	4. Into the Light

**NOTE: centers around the idea that the Face of Boe really is Jack Harkness in the future.  


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**

When Owen died, he couldn't bear it and did something rash to bring him back. It was worth it, in the end. The man found purpose, rather than drinking himself away until… Until he finally did die. Or when he had heard of the sarcastic medic's fate. That's when it hit him.

_It was more impressive then my previous death. Then again, this wasn't really death. It was more like rapid decomposition. I wanted to tell Tosh how much I really did care for her. I hope she suspected though. But most of all, I wanted to thank him. I wanted to actually _thank_ someone! And that someone turned out to be my boss! My boss who "knew the best" and got me injured. My boss who pulled me out of my mourning and showed me a whole new world and as I stood there… as I stood there dying, I realized it wasn't so bad after all. I didn't regret it. I didn't regret it one bit._

And when Tosh died in his arms. Right after Owen. That look on her face. The glazed eyes, the faint smile. The life draining away from her as the blood flowed away. It wasn't supposed to end like this. He knew that much. He wanted to keep himself in bloody 21st century Utopia just a little while longer. We wanted to pretend that the days when his whole team got through it all would be the only days they had together –forever. Utopia never turns out right.

_It broke my heart, to see our brave and immortal captain bite his lip and try not to cry. I wanted to talk to him, to reach out to his heart. Tell him that it was alright. Tell him that it was going to be OK. I wanted to tell him that it was alright to cry. I wanted to thank him. He gave me the best years of my life. Sure a cut here and there with an occasional bullet in the leg wasn't everyone's idea of a productive work day, but in Torchwood, anything goes. But the things that I've seen, even if they scared me, they were extraordinary. And I wouldn't have missed if for the world. I don't regret it, captain. I don't regret my choice._

When Ianto, his beloved Ianto Jones, died in his arms, he knew that the world had ended. There was no use anymore. Fighting the aliens, defending the earth. He knew that all hope had been lost. For so long he'd been wandering, deflecting questions such as, "When was the last time that you were in love?" or "Do you know what love is?" Truthfully, he didn't trust himself. Not a single bit. He didn't trust himself to say goodbye when the time came. He didn't trust himself to love. But when the Welshman came into his life, he couldn't help himself. He thought that maybe life did have a meaning… until it ended too soon.

_Don't cry… don't cry. I wanted to tell him that. My beloved cariad. Don't cry. That's not the last thing I want to see before I die. Please don't cry. But what a hypocrite I was too. Tears formed at the corners of my eyes and I gasped for air. The virus was working too quickly. I had so little time. _We_ had so little time –together. The only consolation I had as I drifted off was the lingering kiss on my lips and his promise that he would never, ever forget me. Goodbye, cariad. I love you._

Then Gwen passed away. Old age. The only Torchwood agent he'd known to die old. A smile flickered on his lips at the thought, which immediately turned into envy and anger. Why her? Why not all of them? It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. Death wasn't fair. Gwen had left behind a husband and son, who she had named Jack Ianto Williams. He felt honored at the choice as he saw the old man in the front. He was in a wheelchair, but the eyes were unmistakable. The man ordered his son to wheel him over to him, then ordering him to have some time together. He consoled the wheelchair-ridden man, knowing that he had little time left as well. He cried and cried as he simply agreed and tried to stay strong. They were all gone now. All of them.

_It was in my will. Not anything of monetary value, but of honor. I asked, if I should die before meeting him again, that the following passage would be read at my service: __"__**Dear Captain Jack Harkness, it was good. Really. Honestly. I don't know if you're here at my service or not, but if you are, you're probably on the very back row and at the end of the aisle. As the heads turn back to see you, they won't, even if you're there. Because that's just you Jack. The invisible man. You're everywhere, but you're still too scared to crack out of that shell. I don't want you to mourn me too long Jack. I want you to move on. Find some purpose in your life. I know it's not fair Jack. I know it's not and I can't even begin to fathom how it feels to be you, sitting on that back row. But if I know anything about the time when we were all together, I know that we're all going to see you again. One day. I'm sure of it. Me, Tosh, Owen, Ianto… Even Suzie. Estelle. Martha. Everyone. We're all going to one big happy family. Because this is what we are Jack. Torchwood. Dead since 2009, but it lives on in you. You taught us what life was about. If it got us killed, then we knew the risk. This is Torchwood, Jack. It's you and all the good that you are. 21**__**st**__** century was when everything changed and you made us ready.**__"_

They say that just when you're about to die, you're life flashes before your eyes. Which life was that? He didn't know. He had too many lifetimes, all caught up on one point: when his world came crashing down. It was nice to know that people were by his side as he passed on. The Doctor, Martha and Novice Hame. It broke his heart to see them gaze helplessly, but he would see them soon. That was what she had promised. All those millions of years ago. He never forgot. He never could. The 21st century was when everything changed and now he was finally ready.

_The light was so bright. Just like the time vortex, what had guaranteed my eternal suffering. Except now… it wasn't eternal. I saw them. I saw them all. All the people I cared for and loved. All those that were there for me. All there, waiting in the light. I cast a final glance at the broken Doctor and assured him that time would change. He would find salvation one day, just like I had found it. The Doctor looked up at where I should have been. I could have sworn that he saw me. He smiled and I could feel his sadness turn into joy for me. I nodded and gave him that cheeky signature smile of my human self and turned around, running into my cariad's arms. We promised forever. Now, we had it._

**Because after all those years of watching the light fade away, I was finally home. Where I belonged. With everyone. And I was never, ever leaving again. This time, it was an promise of forever.**


	5. Cain, a fiction

Jack traveled the stars longer than he had intended. He had always felt that someday Planet Earth would drag him back down. It almost never happened.

Jack was in yet another intergalactic bar. He wasn't Jack anymore. He was Cain –a name the immortal had found very fitting. Cain was a murderer in the Bible and the captain felt that he was comparable in every single way. Everything he ever touched turned to dust. He was, with no doubt, a murderer.

One hundred years must have passed already or was it two hundred? Three? Four? Cain was once again drowning his sorrows with alcohol, the conventional way to do things. It never helped. He couldn't forget even if he wanted to. How could he? For once he'd thought that he'd found where he finally belonged and it was just suddenly and cruelly taken away from him.

He remembered the pain and the agony. The heartbreak and the sensation of feeling his heart being shattered infinite pieces that could never be put back together again. He remembered the faces, the names, the voices. He remembered _everything_. Every time he fell asleep, he smelled the menacing aroma of chrysanthemums.

Looking around, Cain pulled out the ancient Webley he still had. There were few creatures in the bar. Surely one bullet in the head wouldn't startle many. Shakily, he held up the barrel of the gun to his temple. His finger was just about to pull the trigger when someone pulled at the weapon.

"Jack…" The person popped the last consonant of the name like he was disappointed, stern or solemn. Perhaps it was a mixture of all three.

Cain turned around. No one had called him that almost since he ran away. The immortal did not recognize the voice or the man that knew his name. He did however recognize the eyes and he even more so recognized the blue police box in the back of the bar. On top of that, he realized the area was completely frozen in a time lock. The light on the top of the TARDIS was blinking silently.

"Doctor," Cain whispered with hate. He could take the revolver right now and shoot it through the Time Lord's head and heart, effectively killing before he could regenerate.

Somehow, Cain's hands would not agree with his thoughts. The Webley gently fell out of his hand and into the Time Lord's.

"This isn't you," the Doctor said. His voice was controlled, like he was not angry. It also masked his sorrow and knowledge that he knew all along about Jack's fate.

Cain took one look at the Doctor's eyes and burst out crying. For the first time in nearly four hundred and sixty-five years Cain shed tears. His sobs came out like a tidal wave. The tears flowed freely and without shame as the Doctor held him. Each tear he shed was for each day he lived on pained. He cried and cried until there was nothing else left to give. When Cain was finished, exhaustion was evident in his eyes.

"I loved him…" he whispered.

"I know," the Doctor replied, not loosening his hold in the immortal.

"It's not fair."

"It never is."

"Why me?" Jack –for that was who he truly was- asked.

"It's my fault," the Doctor apologized. There was a period of silence. "Jack…" the Doctor began. "I know you don't want to go back but… Gwen's dying from old age. You have your pain but do not burden others who have survived."

Survived… Gwen had survived. She's grown old. She'd beaten the odds.

Jack understood what his Doctor was asking of him. Nodding, Jack stood up. The last Time Lord whipped out his sonic screwdriver. To Jack's surprise, the Doctor held it to the former Time Agent's vortex manipulator. Then he held out a key. It was attached to a piece string with a black bit stuck haphazardly on it.

"I believe this is yours," the Doctor said. "If you ever need to…" The sentence did not need to be finished as the Doctor disappeared with his TARDIS. Moments later, Jack disappeared with a swirl of blue and the time lock on the bar vanished.

There was a bright blue light that illuminated the hospital room. Gwen's grandson, Owen, jumped up startled. He had his gun at the ready. He was Torchwood; he was trained for this. However, the man who appeared paid no attention to Owen's gun.

"Jack…" the old woman whispered from her death bed. In an instant the immortal's face melted in sadness.

Jack? Owen thought. He'd heard that name before. It was in many of the stories that his grandmother told.

"You lot…" Jack was saying. "Never cease to surprise me." Tears were streaming down his cheeks again.

"How long?" she inquired.

"456," he replied. "Ironic isn't it?"

"I rebuilt it-" Gwen smiled.

"I'm proud."

"-but it wasn't the same without you. Lois joined. Martha pulled strings to get help from UNIT and Mickey enlisted the Doctor sometimes but it just wasn't the same. With you around it felt like everything would be alright no matter what come our way."

Jack snorted. "I wish."

"You loved him." Gwen stated the obvious.

"Yes," answered Jack. "There was no one else."

"He loved you Jack. Don't you dare forget that. He loved you so much that he walked in there knowing he might not come back out alive."

"Gwen, don't-"

"But you _know_ Jack. I know you know. I'm so sorry for you Jack. You can't just run away again. You have to stay. _Please_. Protect your families, safeguard the Earth. The Doctor told me you were a coward before Jack. He told me he was proud when he found you'd changed Torchwood. You can't through that away captain. This is your planet. Only you will be here to guard the human race forevermore. Guard it in our honor."

Jack bit his lip and stifled a cry.

"Ianto…" Gwen whispered. "He's in the morgue. In locker 10. Jack please…" She smiled and closed her eyes, drifting into a sleep in which she would not wake up from.

After five minutes, Jack seemed to notice Owen for the first time. "You," the captain nodded. "Who are you?"

"Her grandson. Owen Williams."

Jack nodded. "Torchwood?"

"Yes."

"Take me to the Hub."

Owen obeyed and led Jack to the Hub that was rebuilt in exactly the same way it had been before. What resembled Jack's office was completely empty, waiting for its AWOL owner. Jack ignored the room and headed straight for the morgue. The current Torchwood employees were startled by his sudden appearance, for they all had heard of him.

Jack stopped at locker 10. He took in one deep breath and opened it. Steam poured out and he slid back the cryo cover. Gwen must have put the Welshman in a cyro, waiting for a time when Jack could return and see him again.

Jack felt the tears come again. A drop of water splashed on Ianto's cheek. "I love you," Jack forced out. "I love you. I love you. I love you." He bent down and placed a soft kiss on his deceased lover's lips. "Always been you," he whispered. "No one else." He slipped a trumpet lily in between Ianto's folded hands. "I'm sorry I walked in there and I know you forgave me right before you slipped away. You never stayed mad at me for long. Liked that about you. There was always someone to hold. I know that I told you there's nothing after death but if there's something out there, I know you'll be the one to find it. And I know wherever you are, you know that I love you even though I was too much of a coward to say it. Rwy'n dy garu di my cariad. Forever and always."

Jack slid Ianto back into the locker and ascended the stairs to the main sector of the Hub. The Torchwood employees looked at him expectantly. They'd been without a leader of a while and Jack knew his place in the world. "What are you all looking at?" he asked in a joking manner. "Anything could slip through that troublesome Rift at any given moment. Get to work!"

* * *

**Chrysanthemum = **a funeral flower symbolizing death in the Chinese culture  
**Ten** = "shi" in Chinese with has a similar phonetic spelling as "si" which means death. When said with an Taiwanese accent (aka my slip of tongue) they sound rather the same.+  
**Trumpet lily** = symbolizing eternal life


	6. A Wavering Citadel

**Set post-End of Days. A citadel is a fortress.**

* * *

Jack was nearly two thousand years old after being buried underneath Cardiff and stuck in a cyro since 27 A.D. Two thousand years was a long time for anyone, even if you were immortal. Two thousand years meant time to think and brood. It was enough time to rise. It was enough time to fall. It was enough to go completely insane.

Jack was always the strong one. He was Torchwood's leader. He had to be strong no matter what. When Tosh died and Ianto performed the final logouts, Jack had suffocated his tears as quickly as possible.

When he wiped away the blood and placed Tosh's body in the morgue, he did not shed one tear. Jack even wrote up the paperwork himself. His signature was the one that appeared on the letter to Toshiko's mother and Owen's family. It was the drop of whiskey that he was drinking that stained the corner of the parchment.

Jack was always the strong one. Whenever one of his team fell, he was the one to be there and hold them. Jack was the one to cheer Toshiko after her loss of Tommy. Jack was the one to promise Gwen that Rhys would survive the bullet put into him. Jack was the one to assure Owen that he would make it through his round of "seconds." Jack was the one who'd hold Ianto at night whenever the day was too much. Jack's arms were like a citadel –a fortress keeping the pain away.

But right now, Jack was weak as he sat alone in the Hub. The letters were folded and placed in the corner of his desk. The logout was done; the last belongings packed and waiting for delivery to the families. The captain smelled strongly of alcohol. The bottle of scotch was half way gone and the glass Jack held in his hand was empty. He pondered on whether to take another drink but decided against it. Alcohol did nothing to him –just made him even more morbid. He threw the glass halfway across the room and it shattered on the floor.

Being morbid usually meant more thinking. Against his wishes, the captain's trail of thought led to what would happen when his team was all gone. When everything was ashes. When the Doctor was no more. When he was truly alone.

Unable to bear it anymore, Jack un-holstered his revolver. He studied its barrel and held it to his head, providing a cure for his wandering thoughts.

Sometimes he really wished he had just stayed dead that day on the Gamestation. I would have saved him so much pain and agony. As Jack was being dragged back, painfully over shattered glass, he felt a sense of security. As he bolted forwards and took in a sharp, deep breath, he felt arms wrapped around him tightly, trying to ease the pain.

A small tickle of air met his ears as words were being whispered into them. He was being rocked back and forth.

"Ianto…" Jack managed to choke out. He held his tears back. He would not cry. He was the Captain. He could not.

"Shhhh…" Ianto whispered, holding his captain tight.

Jack was silent for a while before the lack of sound overcame him. The tears came spilling out, dampening Ianto's suit jacket. It was then, for the first time, that Jack had even let someone comfort him. That he'd ever let himself be weak in the sight of someone who knew him as strong. It was then when Jack realized that one day, he would not have this comfort.

It was also then that Jack realized losing his mind, soul, heart and losing control to the man named Ianto Jones was probably the worst and best thing he would ever do in his very, very, very long life.


	7. Abel, a fact

**Read as a sequel to the "Cain" oneshot

* * *

**

Ianto Jones was Torchwood. He started out at One and ended up in Three. He, of all people, should understand that alien artifacts strewn across the boardroom tables should not be touched unless given the OK. But it was just sitting there! Begging to be touched. Who was to stop him anyway? Jack had abandoned Torchwood for the Doctor.

Deciding that Jack leaving was a legit enough reason to reach out for the artifact, Ianto did. A jolt of electricity shot up his right arm and he disappeared from the boardroom.

* * *

Owen Williams typed code into the online Torchwood alien database while Emma, the new medic, prepared the alien body for an autopsy. Two other agents, Dan and Ruth, were busy debating over the latest news. And Jack?

He was down in the archives. He let no one else down there but him.

Apparently, the blast had not destroyed all of the paper files that Torchwood had kept locked away. Besides, those files were supposed to mean more than the lives of the agents. They document the beginning of alien contact, starting with Queen Victoria.

There was a flash in the main room of the Hub. At first Jack heard nothing, until the sounds of this team's shouts echoed down into the archives. Fear gripped his heart as he took out his Webley and cautiously made his way to the main room.

Jack was about to shout, "Freeze!" when the word died on his lips. All that came out was a puff of air. The intruder turned around and locked eyes with Jack.

Jack gripped his Webley even tighter, motioning for the rest of his team to back off. "Who are you?" he demanded instead.

"Jack…"

"I asked 'who are you?!'"

"It's me. Ianto."

Jack laughed bitterly. "Ianto Jones is dead," he said with an ounce of hurt in his voice. "Tell me where you came from or…"

"Or you'll shoot?" Ianto inquired. He was a little shaken at his sudden time travel adventure. The artifact lay forgotten on the Hub floor. Furthermore, Jack had said that Ianto was dead. What year was this? What had happened? How did he die? And were those _wrinkles _around the captain's eyes? Nevertheless, Ianto was known to keep his cool even in the most unfortunate of situations, and that was exactly what the Welshman did. "It's me Jack," Ianto smiled feebly.

"Prove it."

Ianto gripped Jack's revolver and spun it away, kissing Jack simultaneously. Jack seemed to be shocked at first, but thoroughly convinced that this was Ianto. He kissed back longingly, relishing the feeling of his lover in his arms. And Jack absolutely just _melted_.

He wanted time to freeze right there. He wanted to be wrapped up in the kiss for all eternity. When he pulled away for air, a tear escaped his eye and Ianto wiped it away with his thumb.

"Jack…" Dan started.

"Out," Jack ordered.

"But-"

"Now." There was no room for questioning in Jack's tone of voice.

When they were left alone, Jack pushed Ianto from him and broke down on the couch. The Welshman was a bit hurt, but his concern for Jack's behavior was greater. Slowly, he approached the couch and wrapped his arms around Jack. The captain made no attempt to pull away.

"What year is it?" Ianto asked.

"2063."

"I died didn't I? I died young?" Ianto felt Jack gasp suddenly at an unwanted memory. "How did it happen?"

"You can't know too much about your own future, or else you'll change it."

"Jack. Look at you. You're-"

"It's a fixed point in time," Jack cut off. "No one can change it, or else I would've. I would have…"

"Jack…" Ianto pressed after some time. "Please."

Jack remained silent for a few seconds before saying, "In my arms. You died in my arms. We were just doing our jobs and the bloody alien released a virus into the air. We both breathed it. And you died." Jack cried out again. "I held you and looked in your eyes and saw the life just draining away. You were talking to me, crying. And then… you said you loved me." Jack struggled to get the next part out. "But… even… even when you were dying I couldn't bring myself to tell you –to say it." Jack looked up through blurry, tearful eyes and said, "I couldn't tell that I loved you. That you were going to be the only one for me."

Ianto absorbed the information but his mind was too shocked at the fact that Jack loved him that the only thing he managed to utter was, "You came back…"

Jack realized that Ianto must have come from the period in between Jack leaving and the American President elect's assassination. "For you," Jack whispered.

"What did you do after I died?"

"I ran away," Jack answered. "I ran across the stars and changed my name. I tried to become someone else. And the Doctor found me. The rest is history."

Ianto nodded and pressed another kiss to Jack's lips. "I… I think I love you."

"You _think_?" Jack asked, a smile finally gracing his lips.

"Well, I'm still supposed to be mad and upset and broken you leaving us."

At once, Jack's face fell. "I didn't mean… The Doctor… I wanted him to fix me."

"Shhhh… It's alright. I understand. And I do love you Jack." Ianto grasped Jack's hand and intertwined his fingers with the immortal's. Holding it up, he said, "You see this? This means I'm never letting go. Even when I'm dead. Do you hear that Captain Jack Harkness?"

Jack nodded and kissed Ianto hard. "No shut up and let me make you forget how to form sentences."

"That would be nice sir," Ianto smirked.

* * *

Owen called for Ianto but the Welshman didn't answer. "Ianto!" the cockney accent shouted.

Tosh came over the medical bay. "Owen. Keep your voice down. Some of us are trying to work."

"Me too Tosh. But I can't this job down without some coffee. Where's teaboy anyway? He's been unheard of for hours."

"What is it this time?" Gwen asked, coming over as well.

"Do you know where Ianto is?" Tosh inquired.

Gwen's eyebrows immediately furrowed in concern. "No." With once glance at each other, the three adults suddenly launched an all out search for the missing teaboy. It wasn't until Tosh pulled up the CCTV of the Hub that they discovered how Ianto disappeared.

* * *

It was late at night. Jack's body was pressed against Ianto's. The Cardiff night was usually cold, especially if you were underground, but the two lovers warmed each other with the heat of their bodies.

"Jack…" Ianto whispered.

"I love you."

"I know you do."

"Always?"

"And forever."

"You have to leave."

"Kicking me out of bed so soon sir?"

"No! I just mean… As much as I want you to stay here, you can't stay too long. The others will notice. You might get back later than expected."

"Tomorrow morning."

"Alright."

"And Jack?"

"Hm?"

"I love you too."

When the time for Ianto to leave finally came, Jack was crying again. He kissed Ianto for what he knew could be the last time and took a deep shaky breath. "No one else but you. No matter what I did in the past. You know that don't you?"

Ianto nodded.

"And I'll never forget you. Never ever. Not in on thousand years, or ten thousand or five billion."

Ianto smiled. "I'll never forget you either… Jack."

* * *

Ianto walked down the stairs from the boardroom. How long had he been gone? Surely not too long he hoped.

"Ianto?"

The Welshman twirled around to see Toshiko staring back at him. "Hey Tosh."

"Where were you? You were gone for three days!"

"I, uh…" How was he supposed to explain this?

"Teaboy?" Ianto rolled his eyes upon hearing Owen. Gwen followed close behind.

"What happened?" Gwen asked. Her finger had been newly adorned with an engagement ring.

Ianto hesitated for a moment. He couldn't exactly tell them that he'd met Jack in the future and was told he'd die young. Instead, he settled on one important fact. "Jack is coming back," he answered. "That I know for a fact."


	8. No Pain At All

**Slight x-over with Doctor Who's _Gridlock_.**

* * *

The Face of thought about his pasts lives. He had many, considering his long life.

He recalled his first life as a little boy growing up on the Boeshane Peninsula. He was just like any other child, carefree and playful. Of course, that all changed on the day he let go of Gray's hand.

Then he became the dark, depressed teenager that closed himself off. It started to get better as he entered early adulthood, but even that changed when he joined the Time Agency.

The Time Agency itself was a load of propaganda. It promised to help the people, but all it did was corrupt itself. It gained more and more power until it had the means to rule the people. What the Face of Boe didn't recall at the time was the reason he had two years missing from his memory. Despite his carefree and rowdy attitude, he still had a sense of ethics. He could undoubtedly see where the path was heading and he plotted to bring down the agency. He failed however, and was sentenced to a memory wipe. He remembered nothing of his plans and the agency eventually crumbled on itself nevertheless.

That was when he became Captain Jack Harkness, taking the name of a deceased WWII soldier. At that time, he was a coward –hiding in his ship. It wasn't until the Doctor and Rose Tyler came along that he developed into a true soldier. It was something Jack never saw coming.

The next life was when he became immortal. His usual ways of getting by in the 51st century did not correspond with the prim and proper 1800s at all. Then he was discovered by Torchwood. He was a pet. That was all. There was nothing for him to do but to wait around for a century for his beloved Doctor to return. In this time, Jack became ruthless and emotionless. He was a nihilist. There was no point in life, or death for that matter. Jack had already seen it all. Furious, he buried himself in his work.

It wasn't until the 21st century rolled around that Jack changed. Seeing your colleague commit suicide right in front of your eyes reminded you that you were the only one who could not follow in death. The Captain Jack then realized that it would always be his duty to safeguard the Earth. He could not get distracted from that task at hand. No strings. No attachments.

But that was impossible to avoid. Jack had found himself slowly falling, and falling hard. Years and years ago, when Jack realized the pain of loving, he'd promised himself that love was not something he could have. It hurt too much. But he couldn't help it. It was too much for him so he let himself love. When the time finally came, Jack cried his heart out. His heart, which had been shattered into unrecognizable pieces. Pieces that were impossible to piece back together again.

The only one that Jack had every truly loved and had given everything for was gone –and there was nothing Jack could do about it.

For years on after that, Jack was nothing but an empty shell thrown into void and silent despair. Emotionless, back to his nihilistic views. He was a freelance agent across the galaxy after he had gotten his vortex manipulator working again. One day, on one of assignments, he stumbled across uncharted alien tech that sent him back to Earth. It was a place where he was desperate to get off of, until he noticed where he was.

A nursing home. Turning around, he saw an old woman whose eyes were strikingly familiar. The woman's head cocked to the side as if to inquire _who are you_? Just then, the attendant came in to help the woman out. She paid little attention to Jack as she conversed with the woman. In a slip of tongue, she uttered the name "Mica," and all at once, Jack froze. He'd heard that name before. It was Ianto's niece.

In a haste to escape, he pressed the vortex manipulator and set it at random. The nurse freaked out.

It was then Jack decided to keep fighting as a way to tell life that he was not through giving it hell.

Soon, his body deteriorated and he became the Face of Boe. The Face was scarred, mentally and physically. But mostly, he was waiting. Waiting for the end of time. Waiting for the Doctor. For someone to show him compassion

He found that in a faithful companion named Novice Hame. Then the Doctor appeared. As they were waiting for Martha to appear safely, the Face of Boe told the Time Lord his story, for the Time Lord had noticed the same look in ancient being's eyes as Jack's. There was no way to hide it now.

_I am dying_, the Face of Boe stated bluntly.

"Don't say that," the Doctor said.

_Do not fear. There are many waiting for you there._ The Face saw the hint of brokenness in the Doctor's eyes. _I was like you many a year ago. Wandering and sorrowful. Heartbroken even. I didn't not always look like this. There was someone I loved very much before, but he was taken away from me cruelly because of my mistakes._

The Doctor did not reply as Martha came into the room.

_His name was Ianto Jones_.

Then the Face of Boe was dying.

For once, it was not him who shed tears at death, but _his_ loved ones.

The Face of Boe had made many sacrifices. Those sacrifices had shaped who he was and his legacy after his death.

He ran into waiting arms and never looked back. He had left the world behind in search for a better life. He was being reborn. And for once, he felt no pain. No pain at all.


	9. Sins of a Time Lord

**Follow up for _No Pain at All_**

* * *

The Doctor did not know who Ianto Jones was until he happened across a broken Jack. In the Time Lord's timeline, he had yet to hear of the young man. The final battle with the Daleks on the Crucible had not yet occurred for him.

The captain had cried bitterly and blamed the alien for his lover's death. The Doctor had no choice but to act like he knew what was going on. It wasn't until Jack uttered the name Ianto Jones that the Doctor froze.

It couldn't be.

The Doctor had always had his suspicions of Jack being the Face of Boe, but they were never confirmed. It could have just been a coincidence. And a coincidence it was indeed that Jack was the Face. All the Doctor could do was comfort the man and mutter apology after apology, trying to find a sense of comfort the offer the immortal.

Later, down the Doctor's timeline, he saw Jack's face on the computer screen of the TARDIS, in his Torchwood Hub, defending the Earth from the Daleks. In an instant, the last Time Lord's heart broke. This man was so strong and yet he would be so weak in a matter of months.

The Doctor discovered Ianto Jones's cause of death and shed silent tears for Jack. There was no changing the fixed point in time.

At the end of his thirteenth incarnation, Jack was with him. The Doctor mentally noted how ironic it was that he was with Jack when the supposed-immortal died and Jack was with him when he died. To complete the full circle, the Doctor drew his last breath and whispered his final secret. He managed to catch Jack Harkness's look of disbelief and hope at the revelation.

"One day, you are going to die and stay dead."

The Doctor hoped it was enough to make up for his sins –the sins of a Time Lord.


	10. Unconditional Surrender

**Contains quotes from various episodes in the Whoverse.  
---Quote 1 = Boom Town from Doctor Who  
---Quote 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 = Cyberwoman from Torchwood  
---Quote 7 = Countrycide from Torchwood

* * *

**

Love. It was something so fragile and so unattainable.

_**"Look at those two. How come I never get any of that?"**_

_** "Buy me a drink first."**_

_** "You're such hard work."**_

Love was a paradox –horrible and wonderful at the same time. Love made you jealous.

_**"Jack! What are you doing?"**_

_** "Resisting the urge to shoot."**_

Although he was the captain of all innuendos, Jack had never experienced true love being thrown right back at him.

_**"On your knees! Hand above you head!"**_

_** "I'm not giving up on her. I love her. Can you understand that Jack? Haven't you ever loved anyone?"**_

Of course Jack loved, but every single time it would just end in tragedy. In fact, he was in love now, with a certain Welshman who knew how to make his morning coffee just the way he wanted it.

_** "You're worse than anything locked up down there! One day, I'll have the chance to save you… and I'll watch you suffer and die."**_

_** "It was the only thing that would stop her!"**_

The last line was more of a plea for forgiveness than anything. It was a plea from Jack to regain some trust in Ianto Jones.

_**"…Your loyalty is to us now."**_

_** "You can't order me to do that."**_

_** "You execute her or I'll execute you both!"**_

_** "I won't do it. You can't make me. You like to think you're the hero, but you're biggest monster of all."**_

Monster. Of course. That was exactly what he was. A monster. A curse-bearer. Anything Captain Jack Harkness was connected to inevitably meant destruction, just like the Doctor.

_** "So have you ever loved anyone that much?"**_

That was a question better left unanswered.

That night Jack sent everyone home and summoned Ianto in his office. The Welshman could not decipher the unreadable expression in the captain's eyes. Was Jack mad? A little, yes. But that was hardly the reason for how upset the immortal was. He'd seen Ianto's anger and the man's ability to love unconditionally and part of Jack wanted that love directed towards him.

Ianto approached in a calm manner, expecting the worst. Maybe he'd get off easy with just a bit of Retcon. Instead, Jack just blandly stated that he was on suspension for two weeks. With that, Ianto was dismissed. The Welshman could've sworn he saw Jack's eyes in the reflection of the glass as he turned around. It was somewhere in between understanding and longing.

_** "It was Lisa… Sorry that she's dead or sorry that you mentioned it? …You forgot."**_

The conversation had immediately reopened a healed wound in Jack. When Jack stormed to his team's rescue with the tractor, he was livid with anger. As he got out, immediately took out the rifle in his hand. When that ran out of ammunition, he had unholstered his Webley, eventually landing the barrel of the revolver on Evan Sherman's chin.

Jack was just so angry that such a man was sadistic enough to do what he did to Ianto Jones. The love inside Jack was flaring up, making him overly protective and uncontrollable.

Gwen hand pleaded for him to not shoot, to which Jack answered that people like his didn't deserve warnings.

That night Jack watched as Ianto cleaned the Hub for the tenth time. The immortal didn't understand why. The Torchwood Three base was spotless by the third time. Maybe it was just a way for Ianto to calm himself down after the traumatic events. But it was 2 AM already. Why did he go to such extremes and overwork himself?

Having enough, Jack got up from his desk and hung his coat on the coat hanger in his office. Slowly, me made his way to the Welshman and took the trash bag from his hand, setting it gently down by Gwen's workstation. A blanket was strewn across the Hub's sofa. Jack pointed and ordered, "Sleep."

The Welshman's eyes flickered in surprise. Ianto made another grab for the trash bag but Jack intervened and led the younger man over to the sofa, throwing the blanket at the man. "Sleep," he ordered again.

"Can't. Nightmares," Ianto replied quietly.

Jack didn't know what came over him next but he cupped Ianto's face in his hands and kissed him hard. He could feel the other man's sudden alarm as he pulled away. "Better?" Jack asked. "Now sleep." He quickly retreated to his bunker, leaving Ianto bewildered with the ghost of Jack's kiss on his lips.

In less than one year, Jack would discover that he would be the recipient of Ianto's unconditional love. And in the several months that followed the year, Jack would come to realize how much it hurt to love Ianto unconditionally.

But the time being, Jack unconditionally surrendered himself to the man called Ianto Jones.


	11. With These Tainted Hands

**Drabble containing exactly 100 words**

* * *

Gwen looked out the hospital window as she clutched her baby boy tightly. Outside, the sunset splashed colors on the mysterious Cardiff horizon.

One of the colors was a one she knew too well. Blood red, tainting the victims of Torchwood's inability to save all. It was a clear mark of death.

But Ianto had no blood on him when he died. He just lay there, sleeping forever. It almost didn't seem right. And then Jack…

"Ma'am," the nurse asked. "The name of your boy?

Gwen looked at her husband. A look of understanding passed through them.

"Jack Ianto Williams."


	12. Everyone's Heart is Carved Out of Pain

**92 word drabble**

* * *

Pain.

It's universal.

_Everyone_ feels it.

On the top of the Cardiff hill top, as he's swept away to the space cruiser, that the pain of eternity is carved into his heart. And that's when he realizes it's everywhere in everything and everyone. That's when he presses the button to be transported back to that Cardiff hill top, back to the surprised faces of Gwen and Rhys, back to civilization and back to rebuild.

In honor of those who died.


	13. Running from Demons

**Five words too long for a drabble**

* * *

After one thousand years, no matter where he went, it always came back to him. Even if it was a small snippet, it was still there. In time, he would forget why it came back to him, but the memories always left him with a sense of loss and love.

It _confused _him so much that he wouldn't stop running. He landed on some planet where the local psychic had called it "demons."

In time, he figured it out and he smiled. Not that megawatt Harkness smile, but that soft, loving Jack smile that he only ever reserved for one person.

And he stopped running.


	14. Human

**Spoilers for DW _The Stolen Planet_. Also, I'm thinking of writing a House MDxTW xover. How doesn't that sound? Would anyone be willing to read?  
(I've actually already started writing... xD)

* * *

**

If there's anything material that Jack fears, it's a Dalek. What's not to fear about them? They're ruthless and will kill you without hesitation. Their energy beam stings like lightning and you can feel the pain even after you've left your body.

Even worse, it shows no mercy.

So when that sound, the only single sound, or "exterminate!" ran through the Hub, Jack cowered in fear. He was up and about, trying to stop it, but only to realize that there was nothing he could do. The Doctor wasn't here. Only the Time Lord could fix this.

"Someone's trying to get in touch," Gwen informed softly.

"The whole world's crying out. Just leave it."

"Captain Jack Harkness, shame on you! Now stand to attention sir!" the voice ordered. Jack immediately shot up in surprise.

By the end of this adventure he realized he was still a kid, even compared to his employees who were less than half his age. He was still a kid compared to the 900 year old Time Lord. He was still a kid in general. There was an explanation for that.

At the end of the day, he was still human.


	15. The Fall of Spring

**A muse about Jack and his past springs, and coming realize that he really had more than he'd asked for.**

* * *

In the 21st century, spring was a time of rebirth. The sun came up from the skies, the wind would rise. The flowers would bloom again and the trees would bud. It was as if all around the world, the biological clock of nature and humans said, "it's time!"

Jack, however, never _once_ understood this concept. The whole "spring feel" was as alien to him as a Dalek or a Slitheen. He could barely remember a day in his long lived life of a happy, worry-free spring day. First it was waiting in fear of invaders on their Boeshane Peninsula. Then came the terrorizing attack in which he lost Gray. Somewhere down the line, Jack found out that the first he'd died had been in the springtime. And the last time was when he left Earth for good.

Spring. What was that but a name for a period of time? It was truly and surely a misnomer. Fall, on the other hand, it meant everything. Dying. The leaves, the trees, the flowers, the weather. His heart. After all, September 2009 of the 456 was in the fall time wasn't it?

Spring. Something that Jack could not fathom at all.

But what he wasn't concentrating on was the little tiny things in between the big picture. The moments where he felt he had all he needed in the universe –in all of eternity- was right there, in his arms. He didn't concentrate enough on the fact that he probably had more than other out there. He had his freedom; he had love. He had those, although mortal, who cared for him. He had a fantastic, brilliant team that he prided himself in.

In truth, during those springs on Earth in the twenty-first century, Jack had all that he could ever ask for.


	16. He Knew Everything

**Drabble. Jack lays alone thinking about his heartbreak and how Ianto must've known that Jack loved him.**

* * *

Each night after _that_, Jack would lie wherever –a bed, the ground, sometimes in a coffin. Sometimes he'd be dead. Most of the time actually. But the times when he wasn't, the only thing he could do was think. There wasn't much he could do besides that. No one to talk to, no one to confide in, no one to cry to.

Someway or another, Jack would begin to think about those last words. A strangled declaration of love. And he kept thinking how all he said was "don't."

But Jack would convince himself that Ianto knew.

Ianto knew everything.


	17. I've Already Bought the TShirt

**Separate from the other oneshots. Title: _been there, done that. i've already bough the t-shirt.

* * *

_**"You don't understand!" Slia raged. Three heads turned her way as she fought it out with Jack. The same Captain Jack who'd returned centuries later, relieving Gwen's descendant of his command. Right now, the twenty year old Torchwood medic had tears streaming down her face. "That was my _fiancée_ Jack! Not some random stranger or innocent bystander. That was someone _I_ knew and _I loved_."

Jack didn't even put up a fight. Instead, he merely said in a small voice, "I'm sorry." His eyes even betrayed that melancholy emotion. However, Slia didn't register it. She was too caught up in her loss.

"Sorry my ass!" she flung back. The next questions were like punches in Jack's gut. "Do you even _care_?!" One. "Have you ever even loved? Do you even know, even _understand_, what love is?" Two, three. And the greatest one of all was number four: "Don't you know what it feels like to have your heart cut out and broken into pieces?!"

Jack's silent answer to all of those questions? Yes, yes, yes and even more than you can imagine. The captain did not speak though, but allowed Slia to rage. She needed to get it out.

"Why do we even trust you? Why do _I_ even trust you? Any of us could be dead in a minute! I wouldn't have stayed if it weren't for Dan over there –the medic gestured at Gwen's descendant- saying that we were safe with you. But I don't care! You're just some cold, insensitive, heartless bastard who doesn't even know what the hell he is doing!"

That was when Jack broke and a flicker of pure, intense rage across the immortal's face told Slia that she'd crossed that invisible line.

"Out," Jack stated firmly. The word cut Slia like a knife. She didn't move. "Out!" Jack shouted. "Get out. NOW!"

Slia should their trembling as she felt Dan's hand on her shoulder, guiding her out of the Hub. Two other agents followed, leaving Jack alone. Dan sent everyone but Slia home for the night and comforted the girl who was still shaking uncontrollably.

"Wh-What was th-at?" she managed to gasp out.

Dan led her to the sidewalk where they sat on the curb. "You hurt him pretty badly back there," Dan replied. "All that talk about love and losing someone."

"Why? What happened?"

Dan took a deep breath and recalled the video passed from generation to generation. "You know how Jack only ever lets me into the archives?"

Slia nodded. "You never let us go in there before Jack came either."

"There're a lot of things down there from centuries and centuries ago. Dating back to the 20th century. And Jack's in all of them."

"What does that mean?"

"You can't tell anyone this, but… Jack's immortal."

Slia actually laughed out loud. "Thanks Dan. I feel better now."

"No. I'm serious."

"It was a joke! I understand."

"Slia. Do you remember the files that used to float around on the database from the early 21st century?"

"Yes…"

"Gwen Cooper?"

"Yah, she was your great-great-great-great something or other grandmother."

"She was Torchwood. She worked with Jack, along with three others. And I know this because, she left a video to be viewed whenever Jack came back. I deleted it before any of you could watch it. Even erased the residual traces of the file."

"Where are you going with this?"

"The point is, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for Jack."

"He's saved us loads of times," Slia responded. "On missions."

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking as early as 2009."

"And this is still assuming he's immortal?"

"He is Slia. He saved the children of the Earth and then he disappeared of the face of the planet."

"And?"

"It was September. September 2009. Aliens called the 456 were coming to steal the children. The government was willing to fork over the kids, trying to cover up a plot that Torchwood was a part of years before in which Jack had taken part in. They tried to destroy us, destroy Torchwood Cardiff. But, knowing Jack, he did the impossible. He saved the world, but with a cost. Do you know why he was so angry with you? Why he at first didn't bother to put up a fight?" Slia shook her head.

"Because," Dan continued. "He lost so much trying to set the world right. He was married once before. He had a daughter and a grandson named Stephen. Stephen just though Jack was his uncle. One the last day of terror, Jack figured out how to get rid of the aliens but he needed a child. Having no other option, he set his grandson up there and fired a frequency through him. It killed him. Blood coming out his ears, the life just draining out of the little boy's body. All right in front of Jack."

"How could he do that?!"

"He was being selfless, like he's always been with us. It was one child or the whole Earth shattered into ruins. Which one would you choose Slia?"

"And so he ran away because of that?"

"And other reasons. At the end of the day, Gwen was the only one left."

"You said that there were three others."

"Two had died early on. Another died during the five days the 456 were here."

"What happened?"

"Jack tried to negotiate with the aliens and brought the other man with him. His name was Ianto Jones."

Slia gasped at the name. She'd heard it before, by accident. It was when she'd forgotten her belongings at the Hub. She's quietly slipped back in and eyed Jack on the sofa, sleeping. Right before she left, she heard the whisper. "Ianto…" Slia relayed the story to Dan who nodded.

"Ianto Jones was his lover."

All at once it clicked for Slia. She sat there, eyes wide and body rigid for the briefest of moments. For moment there, she could feel how it was to be in Jack's shoes. She could picture herself, watching her beloved fiancée dying in her arms. She could picture herself watching her little brother die right in front of her eyes, knowing that it was all her fault. Then, she could feel the despair and agony. Knowing that she would forever stay. Feeling that the Earth was a dump, trash, a garbage can –full of decay.

Abruptly, she stood up and excused herself back into the Hub. When she reached Jack's office, she saw red tainted all over the walls which indicated a recent suicide from a bullet to the head. There lay Jack, lying in a pool of his own blood in the middle of his office. Slia knelt down and cradled Jack in her arms, expecting some kind of dramatic resurrection.

Jack returned with a sharp intake of breath. He bucked against the arms holding him. "Ianto?" he asked. His voice broke Slia's heart. It was so full of hope but also of despair, pain and longing. Jack looked up to see Slia crying above him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears falling. "I'm so sorry."

Jack freed himself from her arms and proceeded to clean up the blood.

"If it helps," Slia began from her place on the floor. "You talk to me about him."

Jack glanced at her, not speaking. But it was that look in his eyes that betrayed all. That look that told others that he'd always wanted someone who'd understand him. Someone who'd just listen and not tell him what to feel and what to think. Someone that wasn't Gwen Cooper; someone that wasn't the Doctor.

He led Slia to the Hub's sofa and sat her down. "His name was Ianto Jones…" he began.

Captain Jack Harkness was proud when Slia lived the long life Ianto never had.

On her funeral day, he walked over to the carefully preserved grave from 2009. "You would have liked her," he told the tombstone. "I love you."

Somewhere, somehow, on that very day, he could feel everyone he'd lost smiling down on him.


	18. Goodbye

**Main Entry:** good–bye

**Variants:** goodbye, good-by

**Function:** _noun_

**Etymology: **alteration of _godbwye_ meaning _God be with you_

**Date:** circa 1580

What kind of word was goodbye? Goodbye. Good-bye. _Good_-bye. The "bye" part was understandable. It was a short statement of farewell. But the "good?" What was so good about "goodbye" when it was forever? These were the things Ianto Jones pondered about during the time in between the Hub exploding and Floor 13. Goodbye was, in Ianto's book, a one-word oxymoron.

That's why he never said it when he died.


	19. If Life Were a Hollywood Drama

**Exactly 100 words.  
A drabble---

* * *

**If life were a Hollywood drama, then people would never have to leave the coffee shops and go do their jobs.

If life were a Hollywood drama, then it would be once upon a time.

If life were a Hollywood drama, then it would be happily ever after.

If life were a Hollywood drama, then there would be no death.

If life were a Hollywood drama, then everyone would get second chances.

But life isn't and wasn't ever a Hollywood drama. There were no such things as second chances. It took Jack Harkness leaving for Gwen Cooper to realize that.


	20. Je t’aime

The thing about a bomb is that it blows up. The thing about blowing up is that it sets things on fire. The thing about setting things of fire is that they get destroyed. The thing about destruction is that you lose what you could have gained.

Tucked somewhere down in the archives were two little notes, one of which Jack did not know about. It would be lost forever in the burning embers of concrete and assassination. In short, it died. Gone. For all of time.

The notes were written by to different people. Two men so radically different but so radically similar that they were truly two halves of one soul.

The second note survived the rage and fire. It almost wasn't right. Why must the one that the immortal wrote and stuffed away in fear live on? Why must the message curse that Roald Dahl Plass for eternity? The note was scrawled in a haste of emotional outburst the night after a meeting in a French restaurant.

_je t'aime_.

* * *

**je t'aime means "I love you" in French**


	21. Children

What was left of the government found it fit to send the kids back to school immediately. This was to eliminate any suspicions. Then again, taking the kids off the street was suspicious enough already. Johnny Davies was against it at first but Rhiannon assured him. She needed them out of the house and living, not sulking around.

Mica and David went to school dressed in black. The children themselves had insisted it. Their classmates scowled at them and the teachers frowned in disapproval of breaking uniform dress. They didn't care though. They'd aged at least a hundred years in five days. At least they were proud to say their uncle died saving the world. Because really, how many children can say that?


	22. Eternal Requiem

**AU in which Jack's not the Face of Boe.

* * *

**

The Doctor cursed and mumbled all the way through the tangled mountain of wires. He was tempted to take a chainsaw and cut them apart but there were many things wrong with that method. One was that it would power down whatever the wires were supplying energy for. Two, he didn't have a chainsaw. He finally triumphed to the other side were two humanoid figures were standing.

"Who are you?" the one of the right asked. He, she _it?_ had a monotone voice.

The Doctor held up his psychic paper. "From the Shadow Proclamation. I'm here to investigate readings of human life been used as energy. The intel we've been given states that the human has been put in a comatose- oh shit."

Normally the Doctor did not curse at all, but he had regenerated into a new personality. In addition, the sight called for it. He looked past the two aliens and to the man slumped in the chair hooked up with wires.

Strolling over, the Time Lord demanded, "Unhook him. Now."

"We are very sorry," the monotonous alien droned. "We were told not to."

"By who?"

"By him. And you are not from the Proclamation, are you not? You are the Doctor. He told as about you. He left behind belongings in the event that you should arrive."

The Doctor eyed the two others skeptically and then glanced back at the human male. "Bring them to me," he ordered and the two natives left the room. It surprised the Doctor how easily they could get past the wires and such.

The Doctor knelt down by the chair and looked into those closed eyes. "Oh, I'm so sorry," he apologized. "I'm so so sorry." For this was even better than the hell the man had been living through.

The aliens returned with the box of items and left the Doctor in peace again. Inside was a stopwatch, a Time Agent's vortex manipulator and a letter. The Doctor read silently to himself.

_Doctor,_

_ I know that one day you will stumble upon me and this place. The readings would be far too erratic and unusual. I just want to say that if you so happen to come across me, please don't attempt to save me. You've already done it so many times. For once, just let me fall to doom and let me save others in the process. The planet was dying, but it needs to be around for another few millennia._

_ I don't blame you for not being there when we needed you. Traveling with you, I have come to understand that there are days where you can't save everyone, much less anyone. There are places in which you cannot interfere._

_ I've always wanted to thank you for showing me what was out there, but I could never bring myself to say it. Why? Because in the end, I would always start to think about this cursed long life of mine and then I could become livid with anger. But I don't blame anyone, only myself. That might not be the healthiest thing to do, but it is being selfless –an attribute that you and Rose taught me._

_ And if it's not too much… Timelines permitting and all –well screw the timelines. I just have one last request Doctor, from someone who shares your pain and wishes for a way out. Perhaps I'm not as strong as you. You can choose to end your life whenever you want, but you choose to live regardless. Look at me, sitting in this chair, mind and life force wired into the entire planet's system. I chose the easy way out._

_ My one last request is to bury what I have left in the box in Ianto Jones's grave. I promised that I would never forget him, but now I don't know if I can keep that promise hooked up like this. Please take the items back so I can be assured that somewhere deep down, he's still a part of me. And if it's not too much Doctor, please go back and… and tell him that I love him and that it was always him. You don't even have to tell him who you are or who the message is from. Just let him know that his life after Lisa wasn't in vain._

_ Thank you Doctor._

The Doctor was nearly in tears by the time he finished reading the letter. He fingered the chain of the stopwatch and wondered what memories it held for Jack. They would all just be secrets now. Pondering for a moment, the plan struck the last Time Lord and he scrambled out as quickly as he could –back into the TARDIS and to the Earth.

He estimated that it would take Jack a couple of hours to return to Cardiff by train after the Dalek invasion. During that time, the Doctor landed the TARDIS right in the main area of the Hub. Gwen called, half-expecting Jack to come out. Instead some stranger appeared at the door. He quickly explained everything and eyed Ianto coming in with coffee.

The Doctor took him away into Jack's office and explained everything to him, watching a fine film glaze over the Welshman's eyes. Ianto nodded every once in a while.

The Doctor wasn't a miracle-worker. He just tried his hardest to be.

* * *

**in which the ending it post-Stolen Earth**


	23. I'm Still Dreaming

_Your days, you say they're way too long. And your nights, you can't sleep at all. Hold on, and you're not sure what you're waiting for but you don't want to know more._

When Jack left, he left everything behind. He left behind the Earth, Gwen, Rhys, Ianto, his daughter. He left behind the ghosts. He left behind his legacy. But he couldn't leave his memories. Three thousand years later, the Doctor picked him up from the 51st century. Jack was as good as an automaton or a Cyberman. Still, the captain followed wordlessly. For three millennia, the immortal had not set foot on the planet called Earth –intergalactically known as Sol 3. That was about to change when Earth once again became a target for planetary destruction.

Jack stood on the edge of the same hill he'd departed from. Footsteps came behind him and he felt a shoulder on his shoulder. It was the Doctor.

"I almost forgot him," Jack confessed softly. His eyes stared off into the Cardiff below. "Even though I promised. I don't remember anything but him."

"You won't ever forget him," the Doctor assured. He too looked out into the distance.

"How can you be so sure?" Jack's voice sounded impassive. "I don't remember anything from my mortal life. What is to say that in another few thousand years, I won't remember this life?"

"You won't forget," the Doctor repeated. "The explanation is science. You have a fairly advanced psychic measures for people of the 21st century as did your lover." Lover. The Doctor was calling him a lover. "You created a bond."

Jack's lips twitched in a fleeting smile. "If you say he's in my heart-"

"That and in here." The Doctor flicked Jack's head. "The memories, the feelings and the emotions. You always knew what the other wanted before it happened. He's alive because his mind was connected to yours. And that also means…"

"He knew I loved him," Jack finished. His Adam's apple bobbed.

"You humans are always so interesting," marveled the Time Lord. "All that passion, all that emotion. He knew Jack. When he was in your arms, your eyes, your mind. They all pushed against his mind. He knew even before that." Jack nodded wordlessly. "Now come on. There are people waiting to see you."

"I'm not ready yet," Jack replied. "I'm not ready to get tied down and lose again."

The Doctor agreed silently. "Then we'll return later. You have all the time you need." The two men slipped back into the TARDIS and left.

For the first time that night, Jack Harkness fell asleep in his bed on the TARDIS and dreamed. He dreamed of his last and only love.

_Hold on if you feel like letting go. Hold on it gets better than you know. Don't stop looking. You're one step closer. Don't stop searching. It's not over. Hold on._

* * *

**Song is Hold On by Good Charlotte. That's all in italics.**


	24. The Lady and the Rabbit

**First attempt at mostly dialogue.**

* * *

The moon shone down brilliantly as Jack and Ianto shared a bag of chips in the Cardiff night by the bay.

"What's out their Jack?"

"Hm?"

"What's out there in the universe? In 1969 we went to the moon. But only in 2005 did Earth have a publicized contact with alien life forms."

"Nothing that fantastic."

"But you've been so many places."

"No spoilers."

"… There's a legend about the moon."

"Now is there?"

"In old Chinese mythology."

"And that would be?"

"They have a holiday about it too. The Moon Festival. They say there's a lady up there and a jade rabbit."

"In contrast to a man? Were they less sexist than the Western world?"

"In some ways. The Japanese women had more freedom though. You're making me deviate from the story."

"Sorry. Continue."

"Once upon a time-"

"In a faraway place."

"Jack!"

"Sorry."

"There was an adept archer named Houyi and his wife, Chang'e. One day ten suns rose instead of one and they periled the Earth. The village people called on Houyi to save them. He shot down all but one, leaving the sun that we know today. He was made a village hero and worshipped. Over the ears, Houyi became greedy and self-centered and his wife noticed. In secret, he obtained an immortality elixir. One day, he went out hunting and his wife discovered the elixir. She did not know what it was and drank it all. However, only half of it needed to be consumed in order to gain immortality. As a result, her husband came home and discovered her floating to the moon because of an overdose. But she wasn't alone. There had already been a lonely jade rabbit up there."

"…"

"… Jack, were you listening?"

"Yes. I'm, uh, I was just… thinking."

"About what?"

"About if you would want to go up there and join the jade rabbit and end his/her/its loneliness."

"Of c-"

Ianto's answer had been cut short by a thunder strike, signaling the coming of a storm. They retreated to the Hub where the conversation lay forgotten in the bay.

Months later, the conversation came back to Jack and he realized Ianto was going to say "of course." Of course the Welshman –the Lady- would join Jack –the lone rabbit- on the moon.

* * *

**There are many variations to this legend. I'm just saying the one that my mother told me when I was a little kid. There's also a woodcutter who's doomed to cut down cassia trees on the moon, but I left that part out.**


	25. To Love Again

**Drabble

* * *

**

It wasn't that Jack Harkness didn't know how to love. It was that he didn't. He didn't do love simply because he was afraid of it. He treaded on the edge of the water just experimenting. Love, loss, and anguish.

Back where Jack came from, love was nothing. People snogged, shagged and married only to break up one week later. In time, people stopped marrying altogether. Commitment was useless; monogamy was absurd.

There was only ever one person who taught him what love was. What a ride that had been.

That was why Jack Harkness swore never to love again.


	26. I Won't Be Here Tomorrow

**Happy Easter everyone!! Especially to specialfrancine who's always reviewed and given me the strength to keep writing.**

**I read a fic yesterday by harryfan95 which was a letter:** Was it worth it?** It was written as a letter from Alice to Jack, so I decided I should write a sort of reply. Enjoy!

* * *

**

Dear Melissa Moretti,

That's who you truly are and you have to remember that. On the outside, to everyone else, you might be Alice Carter, but to me you'll always be Melissa –just like how I'll always be the monster to you. You can't run away from who you are, like I am. You would think that someone who's lived as long as I have would have figured that out by now. You have to be stronger than me Melissa.

The thing is… I do hear his screams. It isn't just when I close my eyes; it's just about every day. They aren't just his screams either. I can hear others too. I can hear Ianto telling me I won't remember him. I can hear your mother yelling at me. I hear ghosts and they're always whispering in my ear.

And you know that if there was some other way, I would have taken it. I'm not a cold-blooded murderer by choice. You, Melissa, can find some closure that you will die one day. But what happens to me? One day, I'll be the only one left. That Doctor that I've spun tales about will eventually die too. In the end, it's just me and Time.

I know where you think I'm going with this, but I will not under any circumstances tell you to put yourself in my position. That would be unjust. You blame me, and you are entirely right. It _was_ my fault. I don't ask for your forgiveness either. You don't need you to give it because _I_ took Steven away from you.

Earth is a graveyard. Everything rots and withers and decays. You think society is doomed? Try the 51st century. You don't want to see me again and you won't. There are too many reminders of my past here and I have to get away. I won't be here tomorrow.

But just know one last thing Melissa. It's never worth it. That is one of the things you learn when you have forever like me. All that fixing timelines and saving people, it's usually never worth it. But for that moment there, when most everyone is safe, you finally get that sense of solace –only if you're cursed like me. You feel that somehow, your actions are justifiable.

But they aren't. And that isn't me justifying that what I did was right. What I did was a felony punishable by law.

I love you. You're my daughter and no matter what you think of me, I'll still remember you when I'm old and stuck at the end of the universe waiting for everything to end. I'll remember everyone. Don't think for once that I don't know how you feel.

Your heart might have broken but mine didn't. A heart can't possibly break if it wasn't even whole to start with.

You never truly know what you have until it's gone.


	27. I Think You Need a Doctor

**A side-story to my fic Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever. If you haven't gone over to read it, I suggest you do so now! This picks up from after Liz and the Doctor meet for the first time.**

**11th Doctor and Amy Pond:**

* * *

"Who was that?" Amy Pond inquired. She leaned on the railing and stared past the newly reformed Cloister Bell. Each section was like a little ornament that moved up and down.

"A friend of a friend. Clever clever clever girl. Born on top of the Rift. Got that extra synaptic field around her. A bit strong too."

"Yeah, that's great and all but _who_ is she?" Amy was getting used to the Doctor never directly answering her questions.

"Elizabeth Huang. Liz. Like you. She's got a nickname."

"My name is _Amy_. Amelia just happened to be a name I had when I was little."

"Did you change it legally?"

"People know me as Amy."

"What about those who go around with crashing blue police boxes?"

"And she was here...?" she redirected.

"Remember an old friend I told you about? Jack Harkness?" Amy nodded. "He's immortal."

Amy actually laughed out loud. "Nice one Doctor."

"No really. I mean he's immortal. Like sticks and stones will break his bones but it isn't as if they're going to harm him for long?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well it means, it means he dies but never stays that way. A fixed point in time, the only constant living fact in the universe. De facto leader of the Torchwood Institute."

"But you said that Torchwood hated you."

"Mishap with Victoria couple of years back. Nothing really."

"_Nothing_? You must have done something."

"Would you believe me if I told you the royal family might be werewolves?" Amy gaped. "No, so! Well then, we're off."

"To where?"

"Cardiff."

"Cardiff?"

"Yes. Cardiff."

"There's _nothing_ in Cardiff."

"They've got a Rift."

"Why though? Why _Cardiff_ of all places?"

"Business to take care of. Sooner the better."


	28. Purest Gift of All

Jack had a dream last night. He was the last place he wanted to be: the Game Station. He panicked and raced around the halls he once defended. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be real. He had to get out.

"Jack." The voice was soft and a woman's. Jack spun around to see the blonde girl standing in the console room. And it was bright, ever so bright. The light of the TARDIS's heart blinded him that he shielded his eyes.

And for one moment there, he hated her. He hated Rose Tyler so much for bestowing this gift of life on him, dooming him to forever –alone. But then he came to realize the purity of such a gift. This girl, this mere little girl of nineteen years, had cared and loved him so much that she had the will to never let him hurt and die. And for that one moment there, Jack Harkness realized what such a gift meant.

It was the same kind of gift he'd given Ianto after Lisa.


	29. Another Kind of Immortality

**Follow up for _The Lady and the Rabbit._**

* * *

Dear Jack,

You once asked me if I wanted immortality. Maybe it wasn't direct, but I could tell what you were requiring. The answer is yes. But we both know that is impossible. You can have my forever, but I can never have yours.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I watch you sleep. Sometimes you snake your arm around me without knowing it. It's times like those when I realized how much I must have meant to you. It's not that I don't want you to care about me. It's that I don't want to think about what happens when I'm gone so part of me hopes that you don't care as much as you let on.

And if you do so happen to love me, and you don't say it, I just want you to know one thing: remember me. Not all of me though; I'm not going to put you in that much misery. Just remember one little thing about me. After all, I'm just a blip in time aren't I? All you have to do is remember my voice or my coffee or my eyes or just a small little thing. You don't even have to remember my name, or my personality. Just remember me. That way, I can have my chance at immortality. It'd be a place in your heart until time ends.

Love,  
Ianto


	30. Time Will Tell

**Just a bonus for all my alerters and silent stalkers. You might have read my story Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever. Originally, it was only going to have one arc instead of three. On top of that, the arc was going to be very short -just Jack coming back and Ianto's return. Then I got all analytical and the three arcs were born. These are some of the scenes I brainstormed in the initial writing process. I was going to have Ianto be immortal but I decided against that and instead gave him something more realistic, which will be revealed in the third arc that is currently being written. **

**Enjoy!

* * *

**_Opening scene_

He didn't intend to stay long. Just a couple of minutes to say goodbye again. Two years. It had been that long since his world ended. Just two simple years. One and a half since he left the Earth, and yet it had felt like eternity. The solace he was seeking hadn't come yet, but he'd wander forever if he had to.

"Hey," Jack called gently, stroking the tombstone like it was a face. He took in the dates etched into the rock. Dates, that were too close together. He really wasn't sure what to say, rambling on about aliens hitting on him and him rejecting them all. It was meant to be funny, but the captain only ended up in tears, kneeling at the slab of stone. He mourned and mourned until the sun almost set.

Jack didn't notice that he'd fallen asleep until he heard a woman whisper his name. His eyes fluttered open and he saw dark hair around a slightly tanned face. "Leave me alone," the captain grumbled.

"Jack."

"Go away."

"Jack…" the woman signed and pushed her hair out of her face. "I, Gwen Cooper-Williams, will not leave until you come with me."

*

_After being introduced to the new Hub, identical to the new one._

"Okay, you've brought me here," Jack said quickly. "I should be going. Bye." He reached for the buttons on his vortex manipulator.

Gwen stopped him. "I didn't go through all that trouble to find you just so you could run off again."

"Gwen, there's nothing left for me here."

"There is. There's us. There's Torchwood." Jack smirked at the Welshwoman's comments. "And Ianto."

At the name of his dead lover, Jack tuned everything else out. "What do you mean?"

"A few weeks after you left, I recruited and we rebuilt. Martha got Ianto's body in a UNIT cyro."

"Why?"

"The Doctor called Jack. After all that tragedy, he showed up at the end and he said sorry, said there was a Chula warship like the Blitz. I told him that you weren't around and he said to call back. Do you know what he's talking about?"

Jack knew. He knew only too well and hope flooded his heart. He took out the mobile he hadn't used in almost two years. Dialing one on his speed dial he said, "Deal," and hung up.

*

_Upon the arrival of the Doctor._

Jack opened the cyro chamber and stared at the cold, lifeless face. He felt a pat on his back as a brown tailcoat trailed along the morgue's floor. Gwen watched from adisrance. "What's a Chula warship?"

"A warship," Jack answered, carrying Ianto's body in a bridal style, "filled with nanogenes."

"Nano-what?"

"Nanogenes," the Doctor replied. "Great thing of the 51st century. Replaces doctors. Heals cuts, sometimes cures death."

"Sometimes?"

"We don't know."

"Jack," Gwen protested. "You-"

"Can't?" the captain finished. "Why not? What have I got to lose?" Jack stepped into the TARDIS.

"What if it doesn't work?"

"Then you won't ever see me ever again."

--

"Jack," the Doctor started as the ship traveled through the time vortex. He watched the immortal man caress his deceased lover, running fingers through Ianto's hair and occasionally kissing his closed eyelids. "Jack," the Doctor began again.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"I know," Jack dismissed.

"Truly captain."

"Have you ever lied to me? On second thought, don't answer that."

"Jack, I'm a Time Lord. You can't hide what you're feeling no matter how much _I_ don't like it."

"Where were you? You know every fixed point time, and this wasn't one of them. Where were you?"

"Locked out."

"How?"

"The Archangel Network is still up. The 456 used it to disrupt the radiowaves around Earth which in turn altered the frequency and current of the time vortex." Jack nodded, pretending to understand what the Doctor and just said. "I tried Jack. Tried to find every loophole in time."

*

_In which Jack and the Doctor are waiting for the nanogenes to work._

The navcom came online and the bulkhead was sealed, but nothing happened. "Come on!" Jack stamped his feet in frustration. He hit the console. "Come on!"

"Jack. You have to accept that it might not work."

"It has to!" Jack yelled. The Doctor was about to speak but Jack but him off. "And don't ask Doctor. Because I'll tell you!... I fell in love." There was an uncomfortable silence. "I fell in love!" Jack cried even more. "Me , the innuendo flinging ex-Time Agent, ex-con man, immortal from the 51st century fell in love with a young Welshman from the 21st. And I never got to tell him!"

"Jack-"

"I'm not supposed to love Doctor! Because it hurts when I do. But while I was with him, the universe felt so right. Like I was wanted; I was invincible. And I don't care how you do it, how you carry on, but I'm not the same. I'm _human_. I don't want to give him up. I love him!"

The Doctor's reply was gentle. "Then why don't you tell him?"

The Time Lord pointed and Jack's eyes followed the finger to the man on floor who had his head tilted up, barely supporting himself. Immediately, Jack fell to the ground and cradled his lover, rocking him back and forth, letting his tears stain the perfect face. He muttered "I love you" over and over again. Ianto held a hand up and intertwined his fingers with Jack's own hand. The immortal bent down to kiss Ianto. The Doctor shouted out, but Jack was already lost in the kiss. He didn't notice the buzzing feeling he was getting. It was the nanogenes surrounding him and Ianto. He felt energy leave him and he was suddenly a bit dizzy that he had to pull away.

"Smart tech," the Doctor muttered, running his hand through his head.

Jack frowned. "What?"

"You just kissed him."

"That's generally what lovers do Doctor," Jack replied, pulling Ianto in closer. He wanted the young man to know that he was certain they were lovers.

"Volcano day Jack. Everybody lives. The dominate DNA. The nanogenes recognized the anomaly of the time vortex from you. By the two of you kissing, it reasoned that the two of you were related. It didn't know how, just that you were related in a way. It rewrote Ianto's biology."

"But you said that that was impossible."

"The TARDIS is right there," the Doctor pointed.

"So I'm like Jack now?" Ianto asked. Those were his first words after being brought back.

"Yeah," the last Time Lord muttered.

"That's good isn't it?"

"Well, depends on how you look at it. You've got each other though. You're never going to lose him Captain. He's yours… for all of eternity. You'll never have to give him up."

Ianto looked up at Jack, his eyes a little hopeful and a little tired. "Only time will tell," Jack replied. "Time will tell."


	31. Empty, Broken, Lonely, Hoping

**I thought it'd be interesting to write a eulogy so I did. The title of this oneshot is inspired by the song _I Will Not Say Goodbye_ by Danny Gokey. It's also the song that's in italics.

* * *

  
**_Sometimes your world just ends_. _It changes everything you've been_. A_nd all that's left to be is empty, broken, lonely, hoping..._

Gwen Cooper-William's first funeral was when her granddaddy has passed away. She was four and so very innocent. She had thought that he was only sleeping. She didn't understand why the people were sad, why they cried. She especially didn't understand what everyone was saying about "seeing him again."

Then she grew up.

"We're gathered here today," the woman started, "To honor and remember a wonderful man by the name of Ianto Jones. Ianto was a fried, a brother, an uncle, a lover…" She left the last word trail off unquestioned. "I'm not here today," Gwen started again, "to tell you it's all going to be alright, that we'll all move on, that we're going to see him again because I don't know that. I'm not here to tell lies and give false hope. I'm here to tell you the truth. Where you go from there is your choice."

_They keep saying time will heal_, _but the pain just gets more real_. _The sun comes up each day, finds me waiting, fading, hating, praying..._

"Ianto Jones didn't just die because of gas poisoning. He died fighting. He died, fighting you're your and for me, for the Earth. For humanity. He fought for your children who will become the next generation of greats in this growing world. But he fought and then fell. And when he did, he left behind a lover so broken that it hurt just to look at him. And that lover tried to fix it. Tried to rid Earth of the 456 forever because that was his duty, for Queen and country. For Torchwood." A ripple of murmurs waved through the crowd. "That lover, that man, was left no time to grieve and lost everything that day. Lover, friend, daughter, grandson.

"This man… He- he isn't here today. He's…" Gwen's Torchwood experience kicked in as she saw a blue police box and a very familiar coat shielded by a low-level filter. "… gone," she finished. "but not dead or forgotten. I don't how this man find comfort at night when he was no one to lean on. Maybe he doesn't, but he should. He shouldn't pain himself to remember forver. He shouldn't. all it takes is one good memory to bring the others."

"And I don't know how I find comfort, but I have a loving husband and a child on the way. But maybe…" She locked yes with the man in front of the police box. "Maybe it's because I'm assured Ianto knew. Knew how much that man cared for him… loved him. Even if it was never said. And I believe –I know for a fact- Ianto will never be forgotten by this man. Throughout time and space- never.

Gwen surveyed the crowd once more. "Captain Jack Harkness. That was his name. Captain Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones. Never forget that."

_I will curse. I will pray. I'll relive everyday_. _I will shoulder the blame; __I'll shout out your name._ _I will laugh. I will cry, shake my fist at the sky, but I will not say... Will not say goodbye_

_I will not say goodbye__  
_


	32. Daddy's Little Girl

**Another post-CoE fic. Crossover to Doctor Who Series with the 11th Doctor and Amy Pond.**

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There's that swirl of leaves and branches outside her bedroom that she hears in the dead of a sleepless night. It's that exotic machinery sound that she has never heard before. She reaches the window just in time to see that box. A strange box it was. Blue. Rectangular. Wooden, she reckoned. It was a police box. What was a police box doing in London, England?

And then she remembered. She remembered those late night stories when the lightning would flash and the thunder would crackle when she was just a little girl and she lived with her daddy. She remembered the stories of the blue police box and the physician that was held inside and the wonders that the blue box could whisk you away to. In time, she grew out of those meaningless stories, although her father insisted they were real.

Now, bathed in the moonlight, she could see a man step out from the box, followed by a young ginger woman. In the man's arms was another man. She couldn't make out any of their faces. She raced to the door, as fast as a sixty-year old could, and opened it, not even bothering for a doorbell or a knock.

"Hello Alice," the man carrying the other man greeted. He smiled, but the smile held something sad and regretful. "My name's the Doctor."

Blimey, the stories were true. She looked down at the man whose eyes were closed and breathing stopped. And it almost broke her heart. _Almost_.

Taking in a breath to control herself, she stated, "You're not real."

"I am, whether or not you like to believe it. I am real, I am."

This "Doctor" intrigued her very much. At first she perceived him as gentle and caring with the initial introduction. His second statement was a bit mad sounding, insistent almost. "Then where were you?" she asked. The question was neither accusatory nor remorseful. It was just curious.

"Like someone I knew would say, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Now the Doctor's voice was sincere. These mood swings were giving her whiplash.

"Then why are you here now?"

"Because." He looked down at the other man. "He needs someone."

"There's a whole universe out there for him."

"Yeah, sure, whole universe," the Doctor agreed hastily, slipping into that mad personality of his. "All the stars, planets, galaxies, dimensions. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. And Cracks! Can't forget the Cracks!"

"What are you talking about?"

"What I'm _trying_ to say is that he needs you. Sure there'll all those aliens out there and humans, Gwen Cooper and her family, but he needs _you_. Moreover, he needs someone who won't tell him what to feel. Someone who's not Gwen Cooper and someone who's certainly not me."

"What happened to him?"

"Ah… A little drug testing up in the Sylfrax galaxies. He's been finding rather… _inventive_ ways to commit suicide. It'll take him longer to come back this time. He's got about ten more minutes."

She nodded. "Who's the friend?"

"Amy Pond," the girl replied. "Doctor's companion. I was there when the…" She trailed off. "You know."

The 60-year-old nodded. "Well, I guess you can lay him on the couch. Would you like tea or anything?"

"Oh," the Doctor said, laying the man on the couch. "I already told you he doesn't need me. It's all up to you. Good luck." The Doctor winked and took Amy along with him back into the police box. She watched it disappear before locking the front door shut.

Then she went back to the living room where the couch was. She gazed at the emotionless faced and tried to wonder how long it'd been. Wrinkles were forming around the man's eyes. She smiled a bit and went up to make a cup of tea for him. Then she returned and placed a pillow behind his head. How odd it seemed. It looked like she was taking care of her son even though the relation was nowhere close to that.

There was a gasp and the sound of filling your lungs with air. She lurched a bit and then clutched the man's hand tightly. The man stiffened and took in his surroundings carefully and cautiously. Then he realized where he was and finally noticed her. She smiled and the man's face distorted into something between confusion and forgetfulness. "Alice?" he barely whispered.

"I'm still considering whether to forgive you, but I understand. And in time I'll forgive too. But I'm here for you. I'm here for you dad."


	33. Giving Up

**xover with DW Series 5. Post-Amy's Choice but pre-The Hungry Earth.**

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_Sometimes giving up doesn't mean you're weak, it means you're strong enough to let go._

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Jack passed out on couch. It was his 100th hypervodka of the night and for once, he was utterly intoxicated. He noticed a pretty ginger girl approach him and he smiled. Tonight was a good night to get laid. That was his last thought before he completely drifted off.

When he woke up, he was fully clothed and laying on a bed. The ginger girl was sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at him. "Amy Pond," she introduced herself.

"Jack Harkness."

"Nice to meet you."

"Likewise. What are you doing anyway?"

"Oh, looked like you needed some help. You passed out."

Jack sat up and rubbed the back of his head. "Evidently. You're not a local girl," he remarked. She looked human enough.

"Neither are you," she pointed out.

"Point take, but seeing as that you're not trying to screw me I'll be leaving now." As he began to get of the bed, Amy stopped him.

"Actually," she cut in, beginning her lie, "I'm a bit of an empath. You didn't seem so happy. Like really really sad. It, um, helps to talk if…"

Jack smiled sarcastically as he stood up. "Thanks for the offer, but you wouldn't understand."

"My parents died when I was four. My aunt never cared for me either. At seven, I thought I could run away with my imaginary friend. I've been through a hell of a lot. What has her name? Or his?"

"How'd you tell?" the immortal asked as he sat back down.

"Empath remember?" Amy tapped her head. "And just the look in your eyes."

"Ianto Jones," Jack replied, the tears already starting to form. His eyes were misty.

"Hell of a man?"

"Yeah," Jack whispered.

"What happened?"

And so Jack told his story about Torchwood and about the Earth. He started all the way from the beginning, from his travels to with the Doctor to Ianto's betrayal, to the Year that Never Was, to the 456. He told her of his immortality. Never once did Amy cut in and question him. Instead, when he choked up, she clutched his hand and comforted him. She wasn't like Gwen, all stubborn. And she wasn't like the Doctor, all get on with it and forget.

"I never told him," Jack spat out. "I never once told him how much he meant to me."

"I'm sure he knew," Amy assured.

"How can you be sure?"

"I know everything."

"That's what he used to say."

"Because I've sat at the sidelines. When you're watching everything go by, you notice things. I know he knew, but _you_ have to believe it."

"Sure…" Jack muttered.

"So why aren't you back on Earth defending it?"

"It's got the Doctor. I'm not needed."

"I'll bet this Doctor of yours isn't always there by the looks of it."

"It's too painful."

"So you're just going to feel pain for the rest of your life? When that life is forever for you?"

"I won't remember him otherwise."

Amy clutched Jack's hand tightly and forced him to meet her eyes. "Listen to me," she ordered harshly. "You have to give up that pain."

"The pain makes me stronger."

Amy still kept his gaze. "No it doesn't," she disagreed. The conviction in her voice grew. "Sometimes giving up doesn't mean you're weak, it means you're strong enough to let go. So got out there and be brilliant for the world."

Jack searched Amy's eyes for any sliver of doubtfulness but he found none. "You believe that?"

"I know that. I've seen it." Amy got up and started for the door. Right when she was about to leave she said. "I knew a Doctor once," she said. "He whisked me to faraway places. One time, he couldn't save someone and I asked what the point of him was if he couldn't. You know what happened? He looked at me with this said look in his eyes. He was focused on me, but his eyes weren't thinking about me. I think he was thinking about you."

It took Jack a minute to realize what Amy had said before he got up and ran after her. By then, she was gone and he would never know if her Doctor was his Doctor.

* * *

_Amy and Rory bounded down the stairs to the console room. "Morning!" Rory called._

_ "What're you looking at?" Amy asked as she propped herself against the console. The screen was pulled forwards and showed a man getting drunk._

_ "We're at a bar?" Rory looked beat._

_ "Intergalactic bar," the Doctor corrected._

_ "Even better."_

_ "Never mind. I was just about to leave anyway." The Time Lord reached for the lever but Amy's hand stopped him. He looked at his ginger companion. The look in his eyes gave Amy what she needed to know._

_ "Who is he?" she asked._

_ "Just someone."_

_ "Liar."_

_ "We're all just someones in the universe."_

_ "What did you do?"_

_ "Nothing. Nothing!" the Doctor gave in. "Alright? Happy? I didn't do anything for him. That's why. And now he'll spend the rest of eternity sulking around."_

_ "Eternity?" Rory questioned._

_ "Yes he's immortal. I'll spare you the details."_

_ "Then why don't you do something about it?" Amy asked._

_ "If I got near him he'd kill me."_

_ "Can we stay a bit longer then?" Amy descended to the TARDIS doors._

_ "You're not going out there," the Doctor told her._

_ "He's right," added Rory._

_ "Yes I am," she replied. "Starwhale."_

_ That was how Amy Pond met Jack Harkness._


	34. The Girl Who Waited

**Title is a pun off of Amy, but no relation at all. I thought that I did enough perspective from TW's POV. So I decided to create a nameless OC.

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Why do artists stare at a tree for hours before deciding to draw it? And then, when they finally decide to draw it, why do they add in little details that you've never noticed? I don't think I've ever really thought about that. Besides, what's a shop girl supposed to know? I was just making petty cash to spend. But now I know the answer.

When you're just staring, just watching, just observing… you notice things. Things that others who just walk by might not see. You see what should be the obvious, but to those which it is happening to not so much.

Yep, that's me. The silent girl. Staring, watching, observing… Waiting. From the shop counter on the bay, close to the water tower. Out of the glass doors, I'd see them. The five. And that great black SUV.

Then there were three. The SUV stopped appearing as often. Sometimes the woman would go out alone. Other times it would be two men, teasing each other, as they eased into the black car.

Then the world ended. In a bang at first, then with a whimper. The bomb and the aftermath. It was a school day. Night had fallen and I was ready to leave shop to go back home. That was when the bang came. I couldn't even move. I didn't even jump up in surprise. Even when the manager rushed over to my side and nudged me, I didn't move. My eyes were fixed in utter surprise.

The media was chaos in the days that followed. Then it all just stopped.

After that, there was just one. The woman. One day I dared to venture out of the shop and stop her as she surveyed the wreckage on the Plass. "Excuse me miss. Do you know what happened?"

She looked at me with those blank eyes.

"Are you Torchwood?" There was no use hiding it now. The whole world just about suspected.

"Do you want a job?" she responded.

"I've got one." I pointed at the shop.

The woman nodded understandingly as she turned to walk away.

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One thing I was certain of: it was just her heart that was broken that day.

Because when you're staring, watching, observing… you notice things. Like the intimate gestures between two people. Like the knowing feeling that one would runaway as soon as it all ended.

But that's just me. The girl who sits and waits.


	35. Perception Filter

**Drabble

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For lovers, the pair of them was extremely unperceptive. For Torchwood, they were extremely unperceptive. The touches. The kisses. The stolen glances. The suggestive smiles. The lingering fingers while a mug of industrial strength coffee was passed.

Yet they were each blind to what the other felt for himself –always to scared to admit out loud, instead keeping in locked up so tight. But it was so obvious to any outsider. It was the conversations of eye fleeting eye contact from the rest of the team.

They were just trying to protect themselves –too scared to admit what each felt.


	36. Guardian Angel

**Based on the TW audio-book _In the Shadows_. For those who haven't read/listened to it, I'll summarize. Jack gets sucked into a personal hell forced to encounter past associates like Suzie and current ones like this team. In the real world, Jack disappears, leaving Gwen in charge and Ianto just utterly stunned. In Jack's hell, Ianto taunts him and tells him that he only used Jack. So yeah, basically all you need to know for this fic.

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Vulnerable. That was the word Gwen Cooper was looking for. Vulnerable. That was what described stoic Ianto Jones as they gathered around the boardroom table when Jack disappeared. That face was obvious a kilometer away. That young man, the coffee-boy, the archivist… Jack's lover. He looked so broken, so hopeless. He looked terrified and Gwen knew. She knew he saw his heart shatter. She saw him give up. She saw the fear in his eyes that came from the love he never voiced.

And she shattered too. But she didn't show it of course. She had to be strong. She had to be the leader. She had to be Jack, because Jack was gone. As she and Ianto made their way down to the vaults, she stopped and studied him. Placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder, she smiled. "We're getting him back."

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The days that followed Jack's return were dark and tense. Jack barely exited his office. He didn't let anyone in either, unless it was absolutely necessary. And whenever Ianto went in to give him coffee, Jack would stare blankly at him. When the immortal did show emotion, it seemed to Gwen that the captain was scared of Ianto.

Then one day Jack came out of his office. Ianto had been coming in with a tray of coffee when Jack intercepted it. Setting the tray down on a nearby workstation, he whispered, "I'm sorry." The whole team was taken aback, but not as much as Ianto, who visibly froze. Jack reached his hand up to stroke Ianto's cheek. Giving a smile, Jack continued with, "Thank you."

And then he slowly leaned in to kiss the man he loved. Jack forgot about time, forgot about space. Forgot about the curse of his immortality. He forgot that his team was staring. Jack pulled away for breath and then kissed Ianto again.

Gwen smiled and met Toshiko's gaze. The Japanese woman was smiling as well. Owen showed no facial expression, but for once he didn't pretend to retch or roll his eyes. They'd all be through a hell of a lot the past days. Hm, hell of a lot. What new meaning did that engender? _Hell_ of a lot. One thing was certain to Gwen Cooper though. While Jack was in Hell, Ianto must have been the guardian angel.


	37. Let This Be a Lesson

**So most of the characters are Doctor Who ones, but it centers on the Torchwood story... xD  
The Doctor's speech is partly inspired by the emotion in the Doctor's speech in the episode _The Doctor's Daughter_.**

**EDIT: Now uploaded with correct grammar. The tense was hacked up in the end. I used past tense and then I realized I switched to present tense after the Doctor's monologue.**

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A crater. It was a big, smoking crater. Well, not exactly smoking anymore. That had cleared up days ago. But truth be told, it was a crater. And on the edge of it stood United Nations Intelligence Taskforce New York sector medical director Martha Jones-Smith. Mickey stood next to her, holding her hand. Martha had been sent over by UNIT headquarters in America to survey the aftermath of the 456 in the fellow NATO country United Kingdom because of her original nationality. That, and because of her ties with Torchwood.

And Martha Smith nee Jones was absolutely furious. Her hand gripped her new husband's hand tightly. A British general came up to her and attempted to brief her on the spot. "I don't want to hear it," she interrupted. Her voice was starting to shake. The general paused and tried to begin again. "I said I don't want to hear it," Martha repeated.

"Just back off mate," Mickey told the UNIT general. The general relented and walked back to his soldiers.

Martha must have stood there for what felt like eternity before she heard it. The groan of engines, the ringing of an alien bell. Mickey heard it too as they both whirled around, facing the bay, where something blue materialized into view. British UNIT was astounded as well.

A man stepped out. A man with brown hair and a matching brown pinstripe suit. He wore a tie stripped brown and white as well. Hands in his pockets, he approached the explosion site with a defiant look on his face. Martha looked hopeful, even though she knew the Doctor would do nothing about it.

After nodding to Martha and Mickey, he crouched down at the edge of the crater and released his hands from his pockets. In the process, he pulled out a stopwatch and set it at the edge of the rubble. Then he let out a breath, standing up and turning around. His hands were slightly formed fists at his side.

"Let this be a lesson to you," he began with a menacing and commanding tone. He addressed the British generals. "Let this teach you the capacity of humanity's terrors. And learn. Learn from your downfalls and weaknesses, your mistakes and frailty –fragility. Because this had to happen in order for you to learn. And as you learn, the human race will become stronger and greater. It will span across the stars and solar systems. It will triumph as an empire. And learn from one man. From one brilliant, fantastic man…"

The Doctor's voice cracked. "A man who had changed for the better. A cursed man who is on a mission to destroy a planet, to destroy an entire species. A man who is bent on revenge and will commit genocide. And you know what?" the Doctor asked. No one answered. They thought it as a rhetorical question.

"Do you know what?" the Doctor shouted. "I am going to let him. I won't be there to stop him. And I will have no regrets on that. Why? Because the blood is not on my hands. It is on yours. From now until you die, remember that. Remember the blood of an entire species invisibly staining your hands. Because that is what you did. You tore away his sanity. You're government wanted to eliminate Torchwood? It is as good as gone now." The Doctor swallowed hard and spoke once more.

"Faraway, billions of years in the future, Jack Harkness is alone in a room. And just outside that room is dead, decaying bodies. Just skeletons. Outside, the people are mourning and trying to escape the quarantined planet of New Earth. They've longed to see the sunshine again. To feel the light. And Jack Harkness makes that happen. He brings in life and light again, giving his own life in the process. He dies his final death as hero, not as a murderer or a con-man. What will _you_ die as? Because right here, right now, I only see two heroes."

He casted a glance at his former companions and motioned for them to join him in the TARDIS. As the doors closed, Martha promptly broke down as her husband held her and the Doctor looked on, helpless. Then the Time Lord set the controls for New Earth, giving Martha and Mickey the last moments they'd ever have with Captain Jack Harkness.

When it was time for them to leave, the Doctor again ushered his companions back into the time ship. He took one last stroll up to the glass jar and placed his hand on the physical error that separated him from the Face of Boe. Looking in the Face of Boe's eyes, the Doctor opened his mind completely. He poured out his apology and sympathy –the pain he felt in both of his hearts for his old friend. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. There was no reply as the Doctor stood up to leave.

Right as the Doctor's TARDIS started to dematerialize, the last of the Time Lords swore that he heard three words echoing.

_I forgive you._


	38. Gone Like the Tide

Andy runs into Gwen on the street. It used to be that they'd go to a nearby coffee shop and chat a bit if she wasn't busy chasing some alien. Now, it's just the odd glance and move on. Alice might bump into Rhys at Tesco while they're both out buying groceries –Rhys because Gwen is busy minor freelancing. They don't even look at each other.

Andy takes his routine patrol around the school Mica and David attend. Every now and then, he stops the car and gets out. His excuse is that he needs some air. In truth, he's watching the children and wondering. Wondering how two children who've seen such terrors, who know the truth of what's out there, who are just merely _children_ carry on. But if they can, then so can he.

Gwen wakes up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. Before returning to Rhys, she steps into the nursery and watches her baby girl sleep deeply. She reaches out to brush the odd hair out of the way. A tear slips down her face. She doesn't even know why she's crying.

The nights are lonely for Alice. She sits on the edge of her bed, hours into midnight. She sobs horribly. She throws the pillow at the wall. She curses her father. In the end, she cries herself to sleep –a dreamless void.

Rhys doesn't blame Alice though. He understands her pain even if he hasn't felt it. Ever since becoming a father, he realizes how much he'd give and put on the line for his child. The man wakes up to find Gwen out of bed. He too enters the nursery where he takes his wife's hand. Together, they watch their baby girl for a few more moments. They've named her Hope.

The world starts to end again. It's all crashing down, and there's not Torchwood. It's just the four of them and bloody old UNIT. That Doctor wasn't coming either. Gwen had known to rely on just herself. The Doctor wasn't even going to come.

They're all trapped in a dark room. There's no light except for the crescent moon. Then it all stops. The world just _freezes_ for a moment. Breathing is stilled. Then it's all back to normal. Everything is alright; it's okay. Gwen sees a figure move outside and she runs after it, taking Rhys, Andy and Alice with her. The figure turns the corner, coat flapping. It's not of a period military coat. It's more like a cloak. The stranger, as Gwen had perceived it, is hooded like he doesn't want to be seen.

They try to pursue and turn the corner but another man appears. He looks odd, and his sense of dress –especially the bowtie. Funny looks aside, he definitely wasn't giving them one. The look on this stranger's face is serious and maybe a little deadly. It's too deadly for their liking.

Gwen gathers up the courage to ask what had happened. The man answers cryptically, but insists they need to spread it on. He tells them about Earth's future as an empire. "The Great and Bountiful Empire" he calls it. There's some sort of reverence in his voice but Gwen snorts at the idea. Then she asks what they need to spread.

Then he turns serious again. He tells them that one day something bad will happen. Something horrible. Horrible to the Earth. And "_he_" will be forced back. "I've seen the timelines," the stranger says, "And you need to be ready." He tells them the legend they must pass on as a story of "hope."

_There are things waiting in the darkness. Terrible, excellent, horrible, brilliant things. Waiting to haunt, waiting to share, waiting to taunt, ready to torture. And when all hope seems lost, when all else fails, he'll be there to save you. Then… he'll be gone like the tide._

They are well into their fifties now. It's been twenty years at least since their encounter with the stranger in the alleyway and that cloaked figure. The stranger was right. It was horrible; it was bad. The four of them are trying to calm the people. Hope Williams is being strong, being a soldier, just like she had always been taught.

The ground shakes. People scream. Gwen tries to calm. Hope grips the gun. The lights go out as the people fall. Again, it's just the moon that supplies the sliver of _hope_.

They look up to an extending hand. Eyes peer back at them. Eyes filled with darkness and light, hope and despair, love and hate. Eyes filled with what they know are probably tears.

He hasn't even aged a day.

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**Very much influenced by the Doctor in _Fires of Pompeii_.**


	39. Eye See You

**Free request for RubyDust on dA.**

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"Who wants to pilot the TARDIS?" the Doctor grinned.

"Not me," both Rory and Amy replied at the same time. The Doctor frowned. "What if we crash?" Amy added.

"Spoilsports all if you." The Doctor shook his head.

"I prefer living if that's alright with you," Rory supplied.

The Doctor rolled his eyes slightly. "I'll be there to help you," laughed the Doctor. "Come on. How many people can say they've flown a timeship?"

"No one," replied Rory, "because if they did, they'd be sectioned."

"Nonsense, I know seven people. Come on Amy." The Time Lord dragged his ginger Scottish companion towards the console. He instructed her to place the lever at just the right angle. The TARDIS shook a bit and Amy reached for the stabilizers. She winked at the Doctor, remembering River Song. The Doctor gave her an unpleasant twitch of the lips.

The TARDIS shook again. Amy reached for the blue switches but the Doctor stopped her quickly with a yelp. Amy looked over at her fiancé. "He hates those buttons," she laughed.

"Amy, don't let go of that lever. Whatever you do, keep it steady. Rory!"

"Yes!" the nurse cried immediately.

"That knob over there yes? By Amy's hand? Turn it 180 degrees."

"Um… alright."

"Are we crashing Doctor?" Amy asked hysterically. "I warned you!"

"We're not crashing!" the Doctor protested. "Just let me…" He slammed his hand down on a big red button. The TARDIS halted abruptly landed. "Slammed the brakes down extra hard," he smiled. "We're alive. Nothing to worry about."

"Where'd we land though?" Amy asked as she made for the door. She flung the double doors and expected to see a field, or a disaster-barren planet. She didn't expect four guns in her face. Giving a small squeal, she slammed the doors shut and gasped. "Guns," she managed to utter out.

"I hate guns," grimaced the Doctor. He pushed Amy aside to Rory and opened the door for himself. "Hallo," he greeted with a goofy smile. His response was the sound of hands gripping the weapons tighter. "Could you put that down? I really don't like guns."

"You'd like that," one of them said. She was a woman with dark hair. Caucasian. Her accent proved Welsh.

"Actually, yes I would… Gwen Cooper."

"How'd you know my name?"

"Anybody tell me the date?" No one else spoke. "No one? Blimey, Torchwood is mighty polite."

"How do you know who we are?" another person asked. He was man, English by the sound of it.

"And where's Jack?" another woman added. She had a face of an Asian woman.

The Doctor thought back to his previous life. "Oh right. Who's the prime minister nowadays? Harold Saxon –he's running isn't he? Explains a lot of things." His eyes fell on Ianto and he softened. He broke eye contact. "You're all so young," he whispered sadly.

"Who are you?" Gwen pressed.

"Obvious no? I'm the Doctor."

"What have you done with Jack?"

"How long's he been gone?"

"One week."

"He'll be back. I promise."

"Where is he now?"

"With a past version of me," he immediately answered. To avoid any other questions, he quickly added in a lie, "Can't tell anymore. Universe imploding because of a paradox and all that. Very complicated, don't need to talk about it."

"Are you done with the chit-chat?" Amy called. "Rory wants to go to Rio!"

"No you did!" Rory protested.

The Doctor cast a glance back but didn't answer.

"Why does it matter that we're young?" the Asian woman asked.

"This life is dangerous. Do you ever stop to think about that?" There was a terse silence. Everyone nodded. "Right, okay then. Alright… okay. You're coming with me." The Doctor made a grab at Ianto before he could protest and dragged him into the TARDIS. The TARDIS disappeared before anyone could even shoot.

"Get rid of that gun will you?" the doctor begged. "Don't like guns. Amy, Rory, meet Ianto Jones. Torchwood Three, formerly Torchwood One. Probably knows more about me than I do, archivist am I correct?"

Ianto skipped all formalities. "Where are you taking me?"

"One trip. To and back. That's it."

"Where?" he demanded. The Welshman's voice wavered for barely a moment.

The Doctor locked eyes with him. "He's coming back," he assured.

"Oh Doctor, just where are we going?" Amy pleaded. "I wanted to get to Rio! I'm even dressed for it!"

The Doctor laughed. "Stay. This here is for Mr. Jones only." With that, the Doctor led him through the doors and into a dimly lighted rom. The man was about ask where he was when he realized the Doctor had disappeared from view. Cautiously, Ianto stepped forward to the only figure in view. Soon the sunlight outside was able to stream through enough to give him a clear view of what he was walking towards.

It was head in a jar.

A _head_ in a _jar_.

But Ianto had seen his share of remarkable things before. He wasn't that startled. He still didn't know where he was. _Not going to hurt to ask_, Ianto thought to himself.

"Excuse me?" he called out. "Where am I?"

The eyes of the being opened. _New Earth. Fifteenth version. New New York._So this person was telepathic, deduced Ianto. _What has brought you here? You are lost._

"Who are you?" Ianto asked. He ignored the question as he didn't really know how to answer.

_Names do not matter. I have had many in my lifetime._

"Do you know the Doctor?" Ianto continued to inquire. If he couldn't get any answers out of the alien friend Jack always talked about, then this thing would have to do.

_He is an age old friend, the second man that I would trust with my life._

The Welshman couldn't help but ask out of curiosity. "Who would be the first?"

_Someone I knew very well, and perhaps not well enough. Someone who changed my life, changed it for the better. Someone I loved and didn't have the strength to tell._

"I'm sorry," was all Ianto could say.

_It is not your fault, but you look like a young man. Live your life day by day and you'll be rewarded in the smallest ways. If you look over the small imperfections and the petty fights, you'll see there's more._

It was also the opportune time for the Doctor to stumble in. "Not messing up the timelines are you?" he grinned. "Well Torchwood, time to go back. Promised your friends, and the world really could implode if I didn't. Paradox." He ushered Ianto back onto his ship. The Welshman turned around once to look at the being again. A face, just a face in a jar. Just a face that made the eyes so much more important. Nostalgia swept through the man as he wondered if he'd seen those eyes before. There wasn't any time to question it as the doors closed behind them and the Doctor brought him back to his own time and place.

"You make the coffee?" the Doctor asked. "Slip some of that Retcon in there for you friends will you? Can't have them remembering."

"Universe will implode?" inquired Ianto.

"He just says that," Amy answered.

"All the same," shrugged the Time Lord. He sighed as the TARDIS landed. Putting a hand on the archivist's shoulder, the Doctor said, "Torchwood ain't that bad with the Captain around. Make it better." Then he nodded for Ianto to leave.

The doors shut.

Amy walked up behind the Doctor, arms crossed. "Explain," she ordered in a commanding tone.

"Torchwood. Created by Queen Victoria after an encounter with a werewolf at the Torchwood estate. Formed to battle alien life forms, including me actually. Toshiko Sato, deceased by a gunshot wound. Owen Harper, deceased by gunshot and nuclear meltdown. Ianto Jones, falls in the battle against the 456 in the year of 2009." The Doctor cast a glance at his two companions to see if they remembered the ordeal with the children. "Gwen Cooper, left the only survivor of Torchwood Cardiff. Captain Jack Harkness, commander of Torchwood Three Cardiff and de facto leader of the Torchwood Institute is presumed dead, declared missing six months after the 456. No one knows what happened to that little tourist office by the bay."

"So?" Rory scoffed.

"So? So?" the Doctor emphasized. "So Captain Jack Harkness tears the world apart and commits genocide against the 456. Billions of years later, he sits in a dirtied room and waits to finally die. Waits to go back to the man he loved and his family. Waits for the pain to go away and…

* * *

Ianto Jones gives out the Retcon and true to the Doctor's word, Jack comes back. Ianto acts like nothing happened. He keeps the meeting with the strange-faced Doctor a secret. It's not even documented in the extensive archives. One year goes by and Gray wreaks havoc, killing Tosh and Owen. Months later, he's lying on a floor.

It's cold.

He can feel the floor burning into him until he can't feel anything at all, not even the tears streaming down his own eyes. It's then when he's fighting the hardest, fighting to hear, fighting to see, fighting to think.

It's then when he realizes he's seen those eyes somewhere before. He's fighting to remember where.

_Someone I knew very well…_

Ianto remembers the Doctor. He remembers him very well at the moment. "I love you," he manages to utter.

_Someone I knew very well, and perhaps not well enough. Someone who changed my life, changed it for the better. Someone I loved and didn't have the strength to tell._

_ Someone who changed my life… for the better…._

"In a thousand years time, you won't remember me…."

_Someone I loved and didn't have the strength to tell._

It all came back in bits in pieces. The conversation. The Doctor. Jack's disappearance. A tear falls on his face. He knows those eyes. He knows them so very well. Longing, sorrow, love. It was all in the eyes after all.

* * *

**_I see you Jack. I see you._**


	40. Sooner or Later

**A tribute to the returning cast and unannounced new cast of Torchwood Season 4 that's supposedly bigger and better. But without Ianto? We'll just have to deal I guess.  
****Evidently, Torchwood's going international. They're going to filming in a lot of places, not just the Cardiff area etc.**

**So here's to the anxious return of Torchwood and how they cope without Ianto Jones.**

**This is basically a fic exploring some of the ways Jack can return, as John Barrowman has signed up for the fourth season.**

**

* * *

**

Gwen would turn around, after a near-death encounter with an alien. The bullet had barely grazed her hair. It came from behind. There was only one person that could have… Then she would lose her breath. That same hair, that same billowing coat. The same face.

"Hey… did ya miss me?"

Gwen could bloody kill him, but she's too happy so she crushes him with a hug instead.

* * *

The new Hub is reminiscent of the old one. It was a good thing that only part of it was blown up. Gwen Cooper-Williams was able to use Martha's old contacts to round up some UNIT troops. They helped to rebuild the fallen Torchwood. The Tourist Office was restored to its original shape. The workstations were back, along with a fixed invisible lift. A office to the side of the entrance held empty though.

She was typing away on her computer, expecting her colleagues return soon. They'd gone out to the local pub for a drink that night. The Rift had been quiet. Then she heard it.

Her paperwork blew of her desk. Where was that gust coming from? The crypt? That's what instincts told her when she heard that bell. Running top speed, she arrived at the crypt just in time to see the faint traces of blue disappear into the air, leaving an unconscious man lying on the floor.

The night is dark and weary. Gwen runs around with her new team. They aren't as great as they used to be, but it'll have to do. It's all they've got anyway. Sometimes they could pull favors from UNIT, but that didn't always help.

There's a small screech to the north and Gwen runs. Her team chases after her. The alien looks like an overgrown lizard, and it's armed with an alien gun. Gwen's not sure what it does, but she knows that it doesn't mean good news –especially when it starts to charge up. A shot comes from the creature's right as retreating footsteps are heard. Gwen runs after it again, leaving her team to deal with the lizard.

She runs out of breath as the silhouette disappears. "We need you," she calls out into the dark.

* * *

The more diplomatic approach Gwen expected would be the, "walk-right-up-to-Torchwood." The girl in the tourist office would have been terrified.

"I'm here to see Gwen Cooper."

"Don't know her; may I direct you somewhere else."

"Do you know who used to work your job?"

"Nope." The girl popped the last consonant.

"Of course you do. I'm here to see Gwen Cooper."

"She's not here. It's just a small office with the two of us."

"What's your name?"

"Anna."

"Anna, let me tell you something." He leans on the desk and comes dangerously close to Anna's face. "I'm Captain Jack Harkness."

* * *

_Gwen tears up, her eyes pleading with Jack. "It wasn't your fault," she tells him. She's forcing him to believe. Jack, however, isn't fooled._

_ "I think it was."_

_ "No." The reply is strong, defiant. Nevertheless, Jack seems to have his mind set already._

_ "Steven and Ianto and Owen and Tosh and Suzie and… All of them. Because of me."_

_ "But you saved us didn't you?" Gwen said. _

_ There was what seemed like a smirk in Jack's eyes. "I began to like it and look what I became. Still, I have lived so many lives… It's time to find another one." He steps backwards, onto the peak of the hill, Agency wrist strap at the read. He presses the button and the signal is sent. Gwen hasn't given up yet though. She pleads one last time; her voice is controlled and forced._

_ "They died, and I am sorry Jack. But you cannot just run away. You _cannot_ run away."_

_ The passing ship has received the signal and they send down the teleportation beam. Jack begins to shimmer in the dark. "Oh yes, I can. Just watch me."_

_ And then he's gone. Captain Jack Harkness, immortal Captain Jack Harkness with a daughter, grandson, lover and friends. He's gone. Just like that. Gwen looks up at the sky, sobbing. She's at a loss for words. Rhys leans into her._

_ "Let's go home yeah?" he asks softly._

_ Gwen turns to look at her husband, the tears still falling. "Yeah," she agrees. "Yeah."_

_ Then the two turn to walk away, back to their car, back down the road. The remnant of Torchwood. But still, they know. They've got a secret._

_ Jack Harkness is going to have to return sooner or later.

* * *

_

**Anna's just a name that popped into my head.**_  
_


	41. Strength, Love and Leaving

A desecrated building lies untouched where One Canada Square used to stand. A black SUV is parked somewhere off to the side, at least half a mile away from the wreckage. A granite wall spans the perimeter of the building, listing the names of the dead. Jack places a single crimson rose at the foot of a section of the wall. He is solemn, along with the rest of this team. Gwen suddenly finds great interest in her feet; Ianto tries to suppress his emotions. Martha and Mickey hold each other's hands tightly. It's only been four days. Two weeks since the Earth found its way back home.

She's not dead and they all know that. She's just lost, misplaced, not present.

Another man walks up beside Jack. The captain has never seen that face before. The clothes are new too. A young red-headed woman who isn't Donna stands off in the distance, waiting for the man to return.

"You lost her," Jack accuses gently. His eyes don't leave the wall.

"I've just slightly maybe misplaced her," the man replies. He is looking forwards at the granite as well.

"What about the other one?"

"Slightly maybe misplaced, lost, with her."

"Is it what she wanted?"

"I didn't have a choice."

"You didn't, but she did."

"Captain…" the man starts. He looks over at the immortal. "The best thing you'll ever know is love and be loved in return. And when the day finally ends, remember that you're able to cry because you're strong enough to let go."

Jack locks his eyes with the man's. "Are you saying something?" he questions. The man breaks eye contact and surveys the people with Jack.

The man smiles. "Not a half-bad lot," he says. The grin stays. Mickey chuckles. "Do the Earth a favor. Save the world one more time."

"Consider it done," Jack replies.

"And whatever," the man finishes with, "whatever happens…" He trails off, unable to speak the words.

Martha finishes for him. "You're strong enough to let go."

The man nods and walks off, back to the ginger girl.

_Three months later…_

"_Just watch me."

* * *

_

**Cameo of Eleven and Amy. Takes place shortly after the Medusa Cascade incident as it happened in May and the anniversary of Canary Wharf is in June.**

**Martha and Mickey are only helping out.**

**Ends with Children of Earth.**


	42. To lose is to win, and he who wins

**Wrote the beginning a long time ago, right after I watched _The Five Doctors_. Doctor-toned, but TW related. Post-CoE and Water of Mars. Pre-EoT.**

**_full title: _****_To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose._**

**

* * *

**

_I suddenly realized what that old proverb meant. "To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose." It was all part of Rassilon's trap to find out who wanted immortality and put him out of the way. He knew very well that immortality was a curse. Not a blessing._

The Doctor could very well call the human race one the most ignorant species in the galaxy, but that would mean hypocrisy. Hadn't a certain Lord President Borusa of Gallifrey looked past his vast Time Lord knowledge and only perceived power?

It was very complicated for the Doctor back then. He was neither young nor old. Just all jumbled up in between. But his first self, the youngest, the most arrogant –practically a teenager in Gallifreyan eyes- had spewed out something that would sling right back at him like a boomerang.

"_Friend over there doesn't trust me, and for all I know, he's right not to."_

The Doctor could feel it reverberating through time as he sat in that Chula ship, high above in the London Blitz. One day he'll turn to his red-headed companion underneath a smoking mountain and tell her, "Every waking second I see what is, what was, what could be, what must not."

He could feel it. Right then, right there. He could feel the wrongness echoing from the rogue agent in front of him. It wasn't set yet, but it was there. And it was one of the points that had to stay there. Yet the Doctor felt that slightest bit of sorrow emanating off the captain. It was something the Time Lord didn't understand. Why the sadness? His curiosity drove him to accept the Time Agent on board the TARDIS.

_To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose._

It was a prophecy, a warning. A message sent back to his younger selves. Beware, watch out. Take heed.

So now he realizes why he felt that sorrow and why he didn't trust the captain to begin with. The captain, now known to be the being he trusted so much billions of years into the future. He realizes how the Time Lord Victorious is wrong and how Adelaide was right. Time must flow its natural order, even with a Time Lord still traveling around. What is. What was. What could have been. What should never be.

On the edge of a crater near the bay, he breathes in deeply and recalls the words he said so long ago. _"…immortality was a curse, not a blessing."_ He looks up at the night sky's stars and sees the one that shines the brightest. He knows that the light has traveled far from out there and that, in truth, the star has already burned out where it is. He looks for the direction of where his planet is, was, could have been, never was. And he sighs again, hands in his trouser pockets.

So he resigns to his fate for that moment and turns around. He walks past the couple coming towards the wreckage –past the disheveled police constable and another lady- head hung low. The woman tries to chase after him; her husband stops her. The police constable stares dumbly, unaware of the situation. The other lady, turns slowly, watching him go.

The Doctor knows who they are, who they all are. He knows how it will end.

So when he walks past, he mutters softly for them to hear. Both his hearts are poured into the last words he'll ever impart to them.

_I'm sorry… I'm so so sorry._

_

* * *

_

**To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose.  
-inscribed on a pedestal in the Dark Tower of the Gallifreyan Death Zone.  
-Then restated by the First Doctor.**

**_The Five Doctors._**

**Basically, the story was about the Lord President Borusa who kidnapped all the Doctors from five and before and tried to secure immortality.**


	43. Wiser Today than Yesterday

People fear death.

Whether it's a phobia or just the tickling sensation you get when you think about the world moving on and on forever after you're gone, everyone has feared death at one time or another if not now. The thought of not exactly knowing where you might end up after you leave is simply unsettling.

But not for Jack Harkness.

He fears life –and has for a while now.

Life is so precious to us. We hold on to every moment, every whisper, every breath because there's no turning back. Life is numbered like a very slow or sometimes rocket fast time bomb. But when you have forever, life becomes pointless. It becomes an endless abyss of lethargy. What's the point if you're going to live forever?

Because each kiss, each touch, each small whisper will be lost in time. And just when you've found something to hold onto, it gets torn away. Promises will be forgotten; vows will be meaningless. But you _want_ to remember. You want to remember the tiny things that made it so special, but it hurts. You bet it hurts; it hurts like _hell_ and trust him, there's no such thing.

He stares at the mirror each night and sees the monster that he has become. While it might be true that he's not a serial killer, he has taken human lives all the same. Manipulating people. Maybe if he just keeps his distance the whole world will turn out the way it should for once.

What stares back at him is an image of what Jack Harkness could have been. Just an ordinary bloke with a non-functioning vortex manipulator. But his heart knows, and that's what gives birth to the monster. And when he stares at himself, he remembers more than just himself. His heart pounds at his chest and the tears flow freely, but silently. He remembers the guilt and the faults. He remembers those he killed, some more than others. Some more fresh in his memories than others.

He remembers kisses in the August rain, under the rooftop of a flat. He remembers the tiny little embraces and soft looks. And he withers, his heart beating even faster, emitting even more pain. He remembers the lost confession. He remembers how little time mortality offers.

And he becomes the lost physician. Someone who's saved and killed, but trying to make the world a better place. Someone who did all that and has lost hope. Someone who's just a fairytale and a story across the cosmos. The impossible man.

His story spreads until he is nothing but a legend.

The legend of Captain Jack Harkness spreads across the stars and galaxies. The Captain defending the Earth with barely any soldiers. The one who loved so greatly, with so much compassion that he just-

Vanished.

And the guilt that plagued his heart, and the prophecy that his last great act would be to save the Earth once more. Only then would he be able to let go the guilt and fault that he put on himself. Because in truth, it really wasn't his fault.

Why? How am I able to say that? To spread the legend, to erase the blame?

My name's the Doctor. I'm 907 years old from the planet of Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. The Last of the Time Lords –and it's _my_ fault.

* * *

"…_he is wiser today than he was yesterday."  
–Alexander Pope

* * *

_

**I don't know what's with me lately. It's probably because of the Series 5 finale, but I'm starting to incorporate the Doctor too much into these oneshots.  
o.O **


	44. When We Say

You see, the difference between a virus and a toxin is that the virus eventually will kill you. It goes without saying that the toxin will eventually kill you too, because obviously, it's still _toxic_. But if it's Aenidiea K78 then that's a whole other story.

Of course, when you're gassing an entire population of people in a building to death, you tend to skip the details. Virus sounds a lot deadlier than toxin doesn't it? _Fast-acting_ viruses cause even more of a commotion. If you're an invading alien, you usually don't explain that there's a cure, a sliver of hope.

Aenidiea K78 is a compound that puts the contaminated into a death-like state. It attacks the nervous system, starting with the brain stem. Then it spreads and targets the neurons, paralyzing the axons. The brain slows down, and the messages sent slow down as well. Eventually, the heart beats extremely slow. The pulse is impossible to feel. But somehow… somehow you're still alive. The chemical in the toxin ensures that you are able to be revived with the sole side effect of temporary dizziness.

So when you're placed in a cryogenic chamber for two-and-a-half years, and kept in a stasis, your body starts to slowly rid itself of the toxin until you're fully aware of yourself, even if you're frozen. The last place for the toxin to leave is the hypothalamus, which sends an impulsive message to the pituitary gland. A small burst of adrenaline shoots through your body until you're knocking on the cryo chamber for out.

Two-and-a-half more years pass by after your re-admittance into Torchwood. That's five years. Five years since your heart's felt hollow. All around the underground Hub, they know he's not coming back. They know, but they hope as well.

_[…this is the part where we say we're in love…]  
[…the part where we share our first kiss…]_

Freelancing is a good market out there in space world. People are always looking for cheap and easy labor. Cheap, easy and _good_ labor. They don't care who the hell you are, or where the hell you come from. As long as you don't cause any trouble, you're hired. Freelancing incorporates a lot of things like bodyguard, bounty hunter, secret agent, spy. Anything you can think of. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Five years, five years since you've had your heart broken. Five years since you've ran. Five years since you've chosen to remember and forget, kiss and tell. Five years of regret, pain and sorrow. You're next mission destination? Sol 3, the third planet of the Sun System. Earth. The same garbage dump that drove you mad and to the edge of insanity. So what's your reasoning? You get a quick jump there, do the job quickly and then hop right back to the nearest cruiser.

_[…this is the part where we say we're in love…]  
[…the part where we say it's forever…]_

Weevil hunting has become a must-do, monotonous task. It's about five in the morning and you're knackered. It's a bit chilly outside. Now you wish that you hadn't left your jacket at the Hub. The SUV reeks of weevil stink and it's almost unbearable. So why did you insist on coming alone tonight? Because it doesn't feel right to go out with someone else. There's a flash of light and you get out of the car, gun at the ready. Two figures are in the forest behind you. One looks human, the other probably alien. The alien is gaining the upper hand you lend a hand.

Bang!

The alien falls and you freeze.

_[…but this ain't a movie…]_

This is harder than you thought. Just quick shot should have been enough, but not when the Prince of Kjagris is adept at hand-to-hand combat. He's got a teleport too. Even more of an annoyance. He sets the coordinates for Earth, the same planet where he had strategically placed explosives on. The Prince is obviously winning but you push away in one last attempt and draw your Webley, he advances on you again and all of sudden stops. He lets out an undignified grunt and, mouth wide open in complete surprise, he falls to the ground.

Bang!

In the dark, you freeze.

_[…I know you can't come with me…]_

It's almost too good to be true, but you take your chances anyway. What else have you got to lose? You lower your gun and you start with a timid hello. The other man grips his gun even tighter. It's aimed at you, at your head. One wrong move in reasoning and you're dead.

You tell him your name, and he ignores. He's convinced that you're not real. You start telling him things only you and him would know. He wants to believe you, but he can't bring himself to. He keeps denying the truths you're saying but you notice how broken his voice is. How it's choked in a tidal wave of tears. You take one step towards him and then another. He orders you to stop, raising the Webley threateningly. You take a step again and you tell him it's you. He falters for that one moment and you disarm him. Then you press him against a tree and you prove it.

_[…you've got your life…]_

When it's too good to be true, it probably isn't. That's what they all say; that's what is true. It's the one rule you've stuck to. But sometimes, miracles are nice too. However, this moment, you decide, is not one of those exceptions to the rule. As the other man disarms himself, you grip the gun even tighter. He's telling you things you don't want to hear, the stories that haunt you. You tell him to shut up and he steps closer.

You want to believe it. You want for once in your long, long, tragic life to have a miracle. You want this day because of that damn rule: it's too good to be true. All he memories overwhelm you in one single moment like a clean download into your brain. You tell him to keep his distance but he approaches anyway. He draws in a deep breath and tells you that it's him. You don't believe it, but you'll take your chances. What have you got to lose this time? So you falter for one moment and he disarms you. You're about to lash back, certain this is an illusion that the Prince conjured up to kill you. Then all of a sudden, you're up against a tree and you can't even speak. You're mouth is pre-occupied.

_[…it'd better be treating you right…]_

You pull away and gaze into his eyes that show you a deep abyss of sadness. He pulls you in for more and then lets you go, holding you tight to his body. Your arms encircle his waist and you hear his hiccupped sobs. You feel your shirt dampening. You must have stood like that for hours, because when you let go, the sun has already come up. The Cardiff horizon is splashed with brilliant colors of life. _Life_.

Reds, oranges, purples. It's so beautiful, one of the rarities of Earth. He cups your face in his hands and kisses you slowly again. It's not a snog, it's a kiss. A proper kiss. Then he breaks away to stare into your eyes. You notice that the sadness has dissipated and has been replaced with the joy of having this second chance. He smiles and you smile too. Then he whispers three words in your ear that're carried away by the breeze. You hear and listen and you smile again. Then you're both off to rewind, restart and fast forward.

_[…I'm no Einstein but I know a sign when I see one…]_

He pulls away and takes a good look at you. You can still scarcely believe it so you follow instinct and kiss him again, desperately. Then you break away and hold him close like he'll disappear if you let go. You feel the trust start to build as he circles his arms around your waist. All of a sudden, it's like the good old days. But different… in a totally fantastic and brilliant way.

The tears start to fall, but you're not sure if they are happy tears or sad tears. It's probably a mixture of both. Happy for him, sad about the pain. But just being in the moment makes it better.

When you finally let go, you notice that sunrise has come. The sunrise takes your breath away. You haven't seen one like that in five years. It's special, but not as special and breathtaking as the man in front of you, the man in your arms. You're so overwhelmed that you pull him in for another kiss. It's not a snog, just a kiss. A proper kiss. Then you break away to lose yourself in those wonderful eyes. You're so grateful, oh-so grateful. You pray to whatever higher power that's out in the cosmos and thank them for this second chance. You smile; he smiles as well. You lean in and whisper three words in his ear that get carried by the wind to the rest of time and space. You look at him again and see him smile. Then, hand in hand, you're both off to rewind, restart and fast-forward.

_[…and I know you love me too…]_

**A/N:** This is probably my favorite fic I've written. It started out at 12:48 AM as a generic CoE fix-it fic because I wanted to play with emotions. There's actually supposed to be dialogue but that got cut out eventually as I started to write. Hehe...

Now it's 1:50 AM. LOL

Anyway, the song in italics really seals it for me. It's _When We Say (Juicebox)_ by AJ Rafael. Search him on YouTube! He's amazing, and so is the music video for this song! Basically, the song is about letting go of someone when you don't want to but you know you have to. I thought some of the lyrics really reflected Jack and Ianto's perceived relationship. I did change one lyric from "he" to "it'd." Changed the meaning, but I wanted it that way. Didn't use name's either. No people names, not even Gwen or other Torchwood people. I think that's a first? Is it? I like it that way. Oh wait, "jack of all trades..." Just noticed that. Purely coincidental.


	45. What They Say

**Follow up to _When We Say._ Obviously made up the team._

* * *

_**

Gwen Cooper, leader of Torchwood Cardiff, effective January 2010.

Martha Smith nee Jones, medic.

Mickey Smith, technology expert.

Lois Habiba, technical support and field agent.

* * *

It's another early day at work as they enter the Hub together, but something is wrong. They can tell right as they enter. Gwen spots Ianto's jacket on the sofa, evidence that it hasn't moved. But Martha sees the most obvious. The door to Jack's rebuilt and empty office is slightly ajar. No one has ever entered there since the Hub was rebuilt. Not even Ianto.

They quietly approach and eye the new couch in the office. Jack is sitting there, with Ianto lying on his lap. The immortal strokes his lover's hair as he whispers in Ianto's ear. The Welshman laughs, his eyes closed. He breathes in deeply and the rest of the team can see the look of perfect contentment on the younger man's face.

And they're incredibly happy for him.

That's when Jack notices and looks up at Gwen Cooper, Martha Jones, Mickey Smith and Lois Habiba. He'll be getting the third degree sometime or another, but for now he grins that megawatt Harkness smile and nods his head in acknowledgement. Ianto murmurs something and Jack's attention snaps back to the man on his lap.

Gwen rolls his eyes and walks to her workstation. Jack returns his attention to the people outside his office for a moment. Martha winks and walks off while Mickey gives a thumbs up and follows Martha. Lois smiles and goes as well, leaving Jack to give his full attention to Ianto Jones.

Finally the rest of the team can't take it anymore. They sneak one little peek through the glass windows just in time to see Jack lean down and whisper three words that looks suspiciously like "I love you." The four look at each other with an all-knowing smile.

* * *

Captain Jack Harkness, leader of Torchwood Cardiff, de facto leader of the Torchwood Institute.

Ianto Jones, second-in-command, archivist.

Gwen Cooper, third-in-command, public relations officer.

Martha Smith nee Jones, medic.

Mickey Smith, technology expert.

Lois Habiba, technical support and field agent.

Torchwood is back in business.


	46. Forever Lone and Wandering

**Probably the most confusing fic to date.**

**

* * *

**

_What we do for ourselves dies with us._

My name is not important. And I have no feelings. No emotion. No thought. To put it more accurately, I didn't before. I assimilate. I observe. Then I copy. Like a schoolboy that's moved to another school. Like a newborn just learning about the world.

There is power to human thought.

A word. One word to an idea and millions more are born. A form shapes and it personifies based on the humans who experience it. It can be anything: happiness, sorrow, pain, fear or ignorance. And then, one idea can embody a multitude of ideas. Marriage can be bliss, happiness and sorrow. Death can be pain, fear and ignorance.

I told you that I don't have a name. I still don't. I'm just a thing after all. A thing. An idea, born in the future but the past. Light years away but at the here. Part of me dies every single day, every minute, every second. It withers away like the knife on a piece of wood. Each moment, I am hurting. Each moment, I'm forgetting.

Part of me died one day. I don't remember when. Many years ago I'm sure. It felt like part of me was ripped out. Torn away, discarded. Left on the side of a street. I'm unique I think. Not another one like me. I embody multitudes but I am only one. There is only one. One what? A paradox itself.

I am what every foolish human being wants and seeks. I am what every wise man knows should not come about. I am what the physician fears, what the scientists want. I am what was lost and found, and then scattered amongst the cosmos –throughout time and space. Lost forever, but always a little too close for comfort.

I am forever wandering alone.

___What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal._

**

* * *

**

**"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal." -Albert Pine**

**First person is cool... because I haven't done it in a while.  
****Kudos to the people who figure out who is talking, as in who's POV it is.?**

**Hint: it's not an actual person; therefore, it's not Jack. But don't let that get you off track!**


	47. Face to Face, Not Eye to Eye

_Like fire and rain, you can drive me insane._

Romeo and Juliet was her favorite piece of Shakespearean literature when she was still studying. Then again, she didn't enjoy much literature, considering her excellence at math and science. Still, the traditional star-crossed lover plot intrigued her. That was when she decided that Shakespeare had such insight into the world. If you stripped away the fancy Elizabethan setting, leaving a bare story, it was applicable to almost any romantic story people came up with in the 21st century.

That was also when she decided that her romantic life would _not_ mirror Romeo and his Juliet.

_But I can't stay mad at you for anything._

Incident Number 1, Name: Jason Angelo. He was at the top of the hit-list when she was threatened to make the sonic disruptor. They had killed him first, her boyfriend, before taking her mother as a hostage.

Incident Number 2, Name: Tommy Brockless. She might have blamed Jack, but it really wasn't his fault in the end. If she were in his position, she knew that she would have to send him eventually. Because that's what they were. Torchwood. The 21st century was when it all changed and they had to be ready, no matter what. So she let go again, just like she'd learned to do with Jason. Mourn, and move on.

So far, her love life wasn't successful as she had hoped.

_We're Venus and Mars; we're like different stars._

The pain was excruciating, the sanguine life flowing out of her. But she pretended, pretended that it was just her broken arm. She even lied about it. Just the arm, not the fact that she could die any moment now. Her head was spinning, but she held on.

She could hear the raging voice through the comms. So she said the only thing that could help herself hold on a bit longer. "…just stay calm."

But what was the response? "Why should I do that?" the doctor cried. "Where's the fun in that? I'm gonna rage my way to oblivion.

She tries to make it hurt less. "Please stop…" The words sound pathetic as they leave her lips.

"Why?" shouts the doctor. "Give me a good, bloody reason why I should, one good reason why I shouldn't keep screaming!" The last word ends louder than he'd started.

What else is there to lose for her? She's about to die anyway. About to sink into the darkness that Jack muttered so many times. What else is there for her to lose? So she cries, the tears slipping down. "Because you're breaking my heart."

She might as well have declared love.

The man on the other line immediately starts to apologize and comfort her. Although he's about to die, his personality changes dramatically. He changes from the sarcastic bloke to a real proper doctor. He puts on a brave front and he asks what will happen to him. She can barely gather her wits to tell him. They go over the old times, like the space pig. And then he says the words she never thought would come out his mouth.

"We never did get that date did we, you and me?" He had died before they got the chance. "We sort of, uh, missed each other. Was my fault. Didn't notice until it was too late." He ended with, "I'm sorry."

She manages a small twitch of the corner of her lips. "Me too."

The screen in front of her flashes and she hears the alarms. She knows it's coming. She knows that she doesn't have to be strong anymore.

"It's alright, really Tosh. It's alright…"

_You're the harmony every song I sing…_

So maybe her love life was a 21st century Romeo and Juliet.

She still got the date, and not to mention the man.

…_And I wouldn't change a thing._

_

* * *

_**So first things, first. I was typifying immortality in the previous fic. Sorry if it was confusing. I'm sure it terribly was.**

**And if you haven't noticed, this is a Tosh/Owen fic. :) I put Janto off because I feel like I've exhausted nearly all ideas with them. Don't worry. Something'll come to me.**

**Anyway, embarrassment time. Song featured is _Wouldn't Change a Thing_ from that Camp Rock movie. I just thought the words fit. BTW, Venus and Mars are the equivalent of Aphrodite and Ares, the Greek gods. Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus (or the Roman Vulcan) but had an affair with Ares. Basically, troubled love life -kinda.**


	48. The Day the Earth Stood Still

**Written for the one year anniversary of CoE Day 4/5 for Ianto and Stephen. Enjoy!

* * *

**So many things can happen in just one year. You can land a man on the moon and keep fighting a war on the other side of the Earth. You can witness the first public alien contact and see the dawn of a whole new world. In one year, the entire Earth can be taken over by a madman. So many things can happen with so little time.

Inside her flat, a new mum and dad feed their baby girl. The baby squeals and they laugh. But today, the laughter is lost in other memories. They stare at their girl and they can't imagine a world without their pride and joy. A world that they almost weren't able to have.

Another couple work around their flat. School has ended and their kids are home. The woman pops the kettle on and makes tea while her husband watches the memorial on the telly. The two kids –one boy and the other a girl- bicker over who get the last biscuit. The woman feels like punching a wall as the pot steams, but she doesn't. Instead, she pours the tea and gives it to her family. Then she breaks the biscuit in half for her two kids. The problem is solved, but if only all problems had simple solutions. She gazes at her children and wonders about a world without them. Wondering about the fact that they wouldn't be here if it wasn't for…

Another woman cries silently in her bedroom. She's been all alone for one year. Sure she's met people and she's received condolences but her life is empty now. She tried to find someone else, but they reminded her of her father before he disappeared. All happy and nonchalant. The front that they put up was the one that _he_ had put up so long ago. Her doorbell rings and she dries her tears. Opening the door, she sees her boyfriend. The redness in her eyes is a dead giveaway. He asks what's wrong and she thinks maybe this is the one.

The military is gathered at the memorial site. Camera crews crowd any vacant space. Lights flash as photographers snap pictures. There's a podium and microphones from various news stations aligned on it. She's asked to give a speech after playing a role stopping the attack of last year. Normally, she'd do it –for the country. But her perspective has changed through the year. She wonders how these people just seem to care, how their sympathy can be so shallow. She declines the speech and just tells the media to let the people mourn in peace.

She stopped working for the government after her espionage charges were stricken from her record. Instead, she became a secretary at a big corporation. She was offered another job, more dangerous than her previous one, but she declined. Ever since then, she's lost contact with all the others. But she doesn't forget. How could she? How could the world forget? Every single child, every single parent –terrified. She goes to work that day and the company TV is on, switched to the channel of the memorial. Another woman tells them to back off. Lois smiles and tells the person next to her that she knows that woman.

A doctor and a technician dial the number repeatedly. No one answers. They try a different number. Still, no one answers. They hop in the next train the Cardiff and wait the long hours as the train finally pulls into the station. The doctor remembers the second time she was here. She made quite an impression, she remembered. The last time, she was staring at a smoking crater. The technician takes her hand and they walk off together to look for others like them.

On the other side of the galaxy, a man lies alone on a cot. He's lost track of the days. It might have been one year, or maybe two, but it feels like yesterday. It isn't just their deaths; he can feel them all. When he closes his eyes, he hears the whispers of ghosts in his ear. The double moons of the planet shine through the barred windows and he sighs. The gun is in his hand and he's playing with it dangerously.

Six parties arrive at the cemetery. They barely acknowledge each other as they converge on two spots. Umbrellas open up as the first September ran starts to drop. The plittler platter of the water masks the tears on everyone's faces.

Six parties leave without a word of goodbye.

Six parties present and one missing, but they know that the missing can't keep away. Sooner or later, better the sooner. Sooner or later, he's just going to drop back in.

Six and one plus the whole world, remembering.

A lot can happen in one ear. The world can end and another planet somewhere out there can flourish. A love can light and a flame can die. In one year, two deaths could have made all the difference to the fate of the world, of the universe.

* * *

**For those of you who are sci-fi geeks, the title of the chapter is taken from the movie _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ where an alien comes and tells Earth to stop fighting amongst themselves. Note: old b/w movie is better.**

**Anyway, in order of the ppl mentioned in the fic: Gwen/Rhys, Rhiannon, Alice, Agent Johnson, Lois and of course Jack.**


	49. iPod Challenge Part One

**Yeah yeah. Decided to do this finally... Shame on me.**

**

* * *

**

**Wedding Dress by Taeyang**

He was married only once, but he didn't even remember when that was. Twenty years ago, thirty… forty? Maybe it was fifty. But he remembered when she left him. It wasn't the constant flirting, or the dangerous Torchwood lives. It was just the fact that Jack was… well Jack –just minus the flirting.

Lucia really loved him; she really did. At first at least. But then time passed, they had a child, a beautiful daughter whom they called Melissa. Then things changed, and the mother instinct came over. She alienated herself from Jack and things fell apart. And their daughter, their beautiful daughter was in the middle of it.

So Jack was surprised when he received a wedding invitation to give Alice Sangster away.

Years and years later, with the help of a little futuristic tweaking, he found himself staring at the same scene again, hidden away. His daughter was beautiful in the wedding dress. He wished he could be walking down the aisle with someone else.

**You Found Me by The Fray**

The corner of First and Amistad was an empty place, if such a place existed in reality. It did in Jack's mind though. He walked and wandered the Earth, just trying to run and forget the ghosts. He waited for a sign, waited for _him_. He waited to wake up.

We waited for a call from an out of place police phone box.

Something that almost never came. But it did. On the corner First and Amistad. That's where Jack Harkness lost God. Because in the end they were all alone. The Doctor made him see.

"You've finally found me," the captain accused, "Where were you when everything was falling apart? _Just a little late?_"

The storm came in between, but the Doctor made Jack see. They were all just lost little sheep, surrounded my misery and grief. The Time Lord didn't have to say it and Jack didn't have to get that impression from him either. It was just the past and history, the storm. It was all in the eyes.

**Over My Head by the Fray**

The world was mechanical as a grandfather clock. Tick tock, tick tock. People were just waiting, waiting for something to happen as they lived their apathetic lives. And because nothing happens, they just sit and look back into the past, have a nostalgic moment and that'd be the highlight of the day. In life, nothing happens until you make it happen.

Two people finally understood that in the midst of hurt and tragedy. A woman and a doctor. They thought too far and when it was needed the most, they thought near.

Now they were the past, while they looked into the future. In the silence, the ground beneath their feet shattered and they were free to feel again. Free to think, the ponder, to go beyond the expectations –beyond police and government.

In over their heads some could say, but really they were just plain brilliant.

**Savin' Me by Nickelback**

He was put in prison once, just for a day. Caught shoplifting. It was dark, damp and dirty. The four walls pressed in on him, the iron bars captured him. He was released the next day.

_The fires burned around him._

He was pretty sure after what he'd done, heaven wouldn't let him in either. A broken man, a fallen angel. The world didn't seem like much to him anymore. Just dark, damp, dirty.

_The walls fell, the fires burned. The metal woman was all he had left. So he held onto it, he betrayed. Because it was worth it, saving her. He had love, he had compassion. He felt like there was still some meaning._

Now all that was gone and everyone else saw him as just another dirty man. He screamed and called, just wanting someone to pay attention, to hold him and to comfort him.

No one heard.

Was it worth saving him? Yes, yes of course it was.

And someone did.

**Run by Snow Patrol**

Death was always quick. Painful… but quick. He'd catch snatches of voices sometimes. Voices he had once let down. But this new lot, oh they taught him so much. To light up the torch even if all hope was lost. And the running, he loved it. The louder they laughed as they ran the better. Adrenaline rushing through his veins, the buzz in his head.

But of course it ends. It always does. He tried to be strong, but we're all still human. And we all cry, shed a tear or too. Because this lot told him how to live, taught him how to care again.

And the laughter slowed. The train inched along. Was there an easier way for all this, because frankly there wasn't any time?"

But even in death, the voices came again. The loud laughter that told him to hold on, to have heart.

We can just call them "that lot" or we can give them a name. A name to remember.

Torchwood. They're Torchwood. And that's Captain Jack Harkness right there.

And louder, slower, whatever. You'd better run.

* * *

**LOL K-POP FTW. jk.**

**This is the first five. I'll write and upload the next five in a few days. I'm leaving town tomorrow so... Stick around for more!**


	50. iPod Challenge Part Two

**Part two. Thanks for everyone who can actually stand reading all the small oneshots that I've spewed out in three minute intervals. They suck don't they?  
XD But I really suggest you guys listen to these songs if you haven't already.

* * *

**

**Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri**

Life is a stairwell of steps. One two three. Our last footsteps ghosts across the dancefloor. One two three. One two three. The music stops for us to breathe and the game is lost. So we learn to live with one eye open and one eye closed. We pretend that everything is alright while we scan the premises for dangers.

Then the routine sets in and we start to forget. We let the world steal our heart. We let love and friendship blind us from the inevitable. We let the good times take over.

But we want that, don't we? The ignorance. After all, they _do_ say that ignorance is bliss. Suppose there isn't much to argue about that. Ignorance is bliss. Death is a killer.

And by mathematical transitive, doesn't that mean that ignorance is a killer?

_One._

_ Two._

_ Three._

Bang, bang, hiss.

**Shattered (MTT Version) by Trading Yesterday**

Each day will pass us by, but tomorrow doesn't hold glory either. All we can do is embrace what's coming and watch our dying hope crumble. All he could do was amble on each day and listen to the silence as the sun set. He was trying to find answers…

But so was someone else.

And the only way was to rewrite what they both thought was right, rewriting the questions.

It's not easy, really. Not a lot of bonding comes between a man who had his girlfriend killed and the man he blamed it on. Just a great tapestry lie that was not uneasily unraveled.

The world they saw, the world they _saved_. Oh you should have seen it. The _glory_. The bravery. And that common bond, the common history, the shared pain helped them. The terrible and yet wonderful things they had seen, the killing hurt they shared brought them closer together.

_And his love will conquer_.

They were both lost and their hearts were both broken, rejecting any comfort. Life had no meaning for them. But you, yes you. You just watch them run because they will be silent no more. Hope remains, this war is never over.

_There's a light, a sun._

Taking all the shattered ones.

Just watch, because yesterday they died and tomorrow they will bleed, but the sun is still there.

**I Will Not Say Goodbye by Danny Gokey**

Sometimes you come to a fork in the road. Either way you choose, the road ends. It's called inevitability. Anything that could have been as left you. And now you're empty, broken, lonely and hoping. You're supposed to take a breath and calm down, breathe. But sometimes you don't. You carve the pain in your heart, your force yourself to remember.

Just like he did, but he really didn't have to.

People told him that time would heal his pain; he'd heard it everywhere. Pastors, priests, friends, doctor. They must have known nothing about pain then, because it just gets more real everyday as he hated, waited, prayed and faded away from view. He thought if he could keep feeling, keep hurting and keep killing himself inside he could keep the memory. So he'd never forget, so he'd keep his face in the shadows and ghosts of the universe.

Because he didn't even get to say goodbye.

He would curse, pray and live every day. He'd shoulder the pain and shout out his name. He'd laugh, and he'd cry. But never, ever would he say goodbye.

_Hello._

**Bolero by DBSK**

She was beautiful, deep down inside. She didn't need anyone to tell her that even if she didn't know. People could see it from a world away. She was kind, caring. She was smart. She was a star.

That glimmer of intelligence was a gift. She had her own dance, and yet she felt helpless.

Because even though everyone noticed her, someone didn't notice her in the way that she wanted. She had friends and companions, but she didn't have anyone she could trust her darkest secrets with. She didn't have someone she could embrace after narrowly missing a bullet, after saving the world for the thousandth time.

Or so she thought.

So she just hoped for a little bit as her dance continued. Her own bolero. But there were so many people ready to greet her, ready to dance with her. One in particular that probably would never admit that while he was alive, or animate.

Her own song, her own dance.

**Just One Day by Better than Ezra**

There was a man who took the name of Captain Jack Harkness. He lived a long life, taking many names, living thousands of lifetimes. He passed by one million people each year, and he outlived every one of them. Sometimes, he wondered if what would happen if he took a different path. He wouldn't have met those magnificent people and killed them all. He wouldn't have loved the ones that he did and he wouldn't have had this curse of immortality as he watched life pass by.

But it had all happened and as much as he wanted to change everything, he couldn't. there was one person that would prevent him from doing so, prevent from destroying time.

But the greatest gift that he received afterwards was one that sent him into a day filled with sobs and tears. For just one day, if he could back and see all the ones he'd known and cared for, if he could see the lover that he lost and find peace at last. Then wouldn't that be great? He got it.

It was called the final death.

**Points at Bolero. A Japanese song that I ended up writing Tosh in with. A coincidence I SWEAR, but a good one.**


	51. What I Never Did is Done

**I should be slapped for not posting. I don't really like this for some reason, but I waned to incorporate this awesome song I found today. It's called _If I Die Young_ by the Band Perry. I felt that it had a big Ianto voice in it, but yeah... Enjoy.**

**Can be read as a prequel to my other oneshot in here called _Gone With the Tide_.

* * *

**

Hope Williams waves her parents goodbye as she leaves to study in London. She waves adieu to her ordinary parents. Her father worked as a manager for a transport firm and her mother worked from home, always on her computer and taking frequent short business trips to London. What company her mother really worked for… Well, Hope never really knew. They had a flat and they had delicious food on the table; that was enough.

So as she enters the gate and stares back once, losing her mother and father in the large crowd of travelers, she doesn't see them speaking to one another.

"You put it in her bag right?"

The mother nodded.

_If I die young bury me in satin.__  
__Lay me down on a bed of roses.__  
__Sink me in the river at dawn.__  
__But send me away with the words of a love song._

Her roommate is eccentric, but Hope doesn't mind. Besides, Katie knows how to fix her computer and block all viruses from her laptop. Saves Hope the trouble of having to sit at her computer for two hours as he computer finishes her virus scan.

Katie's out tonight, with her boyfriend. They've gone to a restaurant in the center of the city and Hope's left all alone in her dorm room. She reaches into her laptop bag for a USB drive but finds a CD instead. Curious and suspicious, because no one uses CDs to store information anymore. Shrugging, Hope sets it down on her desk and she rummages her bag for the USB. She finds it and plugs in the drive, glancing one last time at the CD.

There, written in her mother's unmistakable handwriting, are the scrawled words, _"For Hope."_

Hope can't tell if her mother meant for "Hope" or for "hope." The letters are all capitalized.

But she inserts the CD all the same.

_The sharp knife of a short life, __  
__Well, I've had just enough time._

A video plays itself on Hope's laptop. It's her mother's face, from when she was younger. She's shrouded in shadows, everything dark except for her eyes. And then she starts speaking.

_There's one thing I always wanted to ask Jack. Back in the old days. I wanted to know about that Doctor of his. The man who appears out of nowhere and saves the world –except sometimes he doesn't. All those times in history where there was no sign of him... I wanted to know why not. But I don't need to ask anymore. I know the answer now: Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame. I'm recording this in case anyone ever finds it, so you can see. You can see how the world ended._

Hope furrows her brow. What is this about? Some kind of "goodbye" practical joke? She delves further into the files saved on the CD. And another video appears.

_A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell them for a dollar.__  
__They're worth so much more after I'm a goner._

Hope gazes at her screen. There's a man, probably a little older than her. He's dressed professionally: suit, waistcoat and a striped tie. "Jack, Gwen –if you're still alive. You know how Torchwood is. And if you're watching this, then well. Like Tosh said. And I was never much of a talker. Never was, never will be. But I've just got to say… I have no regrets. I know the beginning was rough, but I've found the ground I was meant to stand on. Gwen, you're a lucky woman. You have what the rest of us can never have. A normal life, a normal past. A existence outside of Torchwood.

"And Jack? I love you. Really, no jokes or anything. Thank you –for everything."

"And if this video is never seen, then I died old and gray. And if I die young, well I've had just enough time."

_And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singing.__  
__Funny when you're dead how people start listening._

The first thing Hope did was ring up her parents. No answer. She dialed again. Still no answer. She started to Google her parents, but there was nothing except for what Hope already knew. She dug around in her bag again, searching ever flap, pocket and compartment. Then she pulled it out. A small book. A diary.

And in it was a letter from her parents.

Hope Williams spent the whole night reading, even after Katie had gone to bed. Underneath her covers, like a young little girl, she finished the diary and she suddenly felt very alone. Not betrayed, not angry. Just alone and sad.

Her brain works on autopilot. She turns of the flashlight and emerges from the covers. Her mobile lays on the nightstand next to her, flashing a small green light every so often to say that it's still on. Hope reaches over and redials the number.

This time, it doesn't even ring and her mother answers on the other side.

"Hello?

_Gather up your tears; keep them in your pocket.__  
__Save them for a time when you're really gonna need them.  
The sharp knife of a short life._

"I want to come home."

_Well, I've had just enough time._


	52. Children of Earth, Children of Time

**A fic from everyone's point of view -at least the major companions. CoE-centric

* * *

**

_-this was the day…_

This was the day when every child, in every land, on Planet Earth stood completely still. Almost lifeless. Just staring ahead. And they spoke, they spoke the most terrible words in the most terrible voice. And it rallied the parents and the people to rise up and fight, but to others it scared and terrified. It turned one against each other and it tore countries apart. It tore the world apart.

It tore away families. Innocent families and maybe some who weren't so innocent.

It tore apart love and cemented it over with burning guilt.

And it tore the ground apart, right out from the bay.

This was the day when all throughout time, one man cried and many people died. One man cried. When that one man fell apart inside. Because –he could run forever and remember the ballad inside his head. The ballad of the dead, the ballad of his misery.

* * *

_-these were the hours…_

These were the hours when she paced around in her attic, her son and his friends at her side. These were the hours when she was confined to her house with her dog and her computer. It was when she had gripped her sonic lipstick so tightly that she thought it would break.

These were the hours she spent wondering in hopelessness. Wondering that if it was her son, what she'd do. Wondering where in the universe the Doctor was and why he did not come to help. Wondering about the phone call she knew was soon to come. The inevitable death of a friend of a friend.

Because she knew. These were the hours Sarah Jane Smith knew that without the Doctor, everybody doesn't live.

* * *

_-when this universe…_

The phone calls came in by her mobile was off. UNIT hadn't even contacted her and when you're lounging about on an Atlantic island for your honeymoon, you don't tend to check the news until it's a bit late. Until rumors float around beach side. Until you see the children speak.

So you're in your hotel room with your newlywed husband, gasping with your hand-covered mouth, at the image of a smoking crater on the Cardiff Bay. Because the reporters all say that it's a terrorist attack, but you know better. You know that something is happening.

But when you fly back to New York as quick as you can, you discover that the situation is "being taken care of." They don't convince you though. Not in a million, trillion years. Not even at the end of the universe. Not with their prim, proper uniforms and straight, stoic faces. You get your husband to hack into the government files and discover that it really indeed has been "taken care of."

A big crater in the middle of Cardiff, three people being tracked down as criminals. Industrial espionage and the siege of a government building. Tens of people dying, begging to escape a building. Tens of people in prim, proper rows of red and one body missing.

And you wonder with all your might, where he might be. Because you, Martha Jones, know as well as your husband that only with the Doctor does everybody live.

* * *

_-and beyond…_

Another universe away, the same thing is happening. Torchwood London must decide what to do. To give away the children, or to fight back. Of course, that's no hard decision. Fight back. Of course! When you've got an all powerful Time Lord brain on your side and his wife, Defender of the Earth, formulating a plan is no problem. All they had to do was build up a small transmitter imitating a prepubescent child, sync it to the 456 wavelength and push the big red button.

Time Lord and Defender of the Earth are almost ready when all of a sudden he stops. And he doesn't just stop. John Tyler freezes. His wife looks over at him quizzically, not understanding. Because little does she know that he can sometimes feel it still. Still feel the turn of the Earth and the ripples through time.

A single tear falls onto the transmit button and John locks eyes with his beautiful flower. "Jack…" he manages to choke out. All at once Rose realizes what must be happening and she's fighting back the lump that's starting to form in the back of her throat, the tears that are burning in her eyes.

"Then this is for him," she whispers, taking her husband's hand. "For Captain Jack Harkness."

And together they press the button, one wondering where he is when other Earth needs him and the other knowing that it cannot, will not and should never be.

* * *

_-stood…_

While watching the news, with her mother and beloved grandfather next to her, she shivered and began to cry. Her head burned slightly inside her skull. The two next to her exchanged worried glances as tears fell for no reason.

* * *

_-completely still…_

You could say long ago, in a galaxy far away, but in truth we don't know where he is at the moment. We only know that one day he'll be refueling his blue box again. And he'll suddenly become very quiet and virtually still as he stares at his reflection through the time rotor. One of his companions, the male one, will ask, "Doctor?" His ginger wife will look up at her husband's question.

And the last Time Lord will shake his head and respond, "Nothing. I couldn't do anything."

But he knew, that one year ago, this was the day, these were the hours, when this universe and beyond stood completely still.

* * *

**Torchwood.  
SJA  
Martha/Mickey  
Rose and Meta-crisis Doctor, who I've dubbed John Tyler  
Donna +Wilf and Sylvia  
11 +Amy/Rory **


	53. Brave New World

**With some small summary spoilers being released for Torchwood: A New World, I've decided to take another shot at it. So basically, this is a scene that I would do. Jack somehow, my RTD's writing, comes back to Earth while two CIA employees are caught on the run after being sent to investigate Torchwood.**

**This scene is when they all find a safe place to stay. Explanations and revelations are to come.**

**Spoilers, maybe, if you don't want to know about the 4th series. Need your help at the end!**

**

* * *

**

"It's a safe house," Gwen said, dusting her hands off from her jeans as she turned on the lamp.

"Old and abandoned. Probably forgotten from UNIT," Jack added in.

"Are you guys running too?" Rex asked, looking up from his gun.

"Always," Jack grinned.

Esther noticed how Gwen stared disapprovingly at Jack but didn't say anything about it. She kept quiet and instead asked, "How do you know about UNIT?"

"Who doesn't know about UNIT?"

"If you'll excuse me," Gwen cut in, putting her hands on Jack's shoulders. "We're out to buy supplies."

"You'll get caught."

"Then we'll be careful," Gwen smiled. It looked fake yet convincing. "Give us an hour." Then she dragged the Captain out of the safe house.

"Well they're married," Rex laughed.

"They're not," Esther disagreed.

"Bet you a hundred."

"Three."

"Two."

"Deal."

* * *

"Becoming bossy. That's happened before," Jack joked as he and Gwen walked down one of the alleys.

"Shut up Jack."

"Alright," Jack breathed out. "Not the first time you've been cross."

Gwen remained silent.

"Look, I'm sorry I left. I've said that."

"I said shut up."

"Well what the hell do you want me to say?"

"I shouldn't have to tell you. If you haven't even thought of it, then you're not the man I thought you were."

"How's the baby?" Jack inquired after a while.

"Girl. Hope. She's with Rhys. They went into hiding and I came here, to track down whoever was tracking down us."

"You don't think-"

"Look Jack," Gwen said, turning around, nearly making the immortal man trip. "You ran. You were the only who _could_ run. So the rest of us stayed. The government was completely destroyed afterwards. We were watched Jack, almost like Germany after World War II. And they think it's all Torchwood's fault. And they want to know who we are."

"But-"

"Green was tried and found guilty. Bridget and Lois tried to clear our names. Frobisher's dead body should have been proof enough that the government was the problem. The world doesn't listen anymore Jack. This is Earth after you left. It's been devastated."

* * *

A small net book screen reflected against Esther's face. "What are you doing?"

"Hacking, researching, analyzing. Whatever you want to call it."

"They can trace that."

"I've taken appropriate measures. Don't underestimate me just because I'm not as good with a gun as you are."

"What're you looking for?"

"Rex Matheon," the watch-analyst said pushing down her computer screen, "you're the best agent with a gun but you're the dumbest."

"Thank you."

"When someone tells you that the money is in the closet, do you go there?"

"Get them to open it up."

"Exactly. Analyze, imagine every possibility. It doesn't bother who that those two know so much?"

"About what?"

"About everything. UNIT, aliens. They can fight. They think like CIA agents."

"So?"

"Gwen said she was on a government hit-list."

"Es, they could just be fugitives."

Esther stared at Rex and lifted up the computer screen, nodding towards it. She had accessed Britain government files.

_Case File: 456. Target Torchwood. Termination of Captain Jack Harkness. Gwen Cooper. Ianto Jones._

_

* * *

_

"UNIT was there. How could they say-"

"Because were the shiftiest. It's all very complicated Jack."

"Then let's all just march right in there and-"

"What's the problem with you?" Gwen snapped, pushing her boss against a brick wall.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you?"

"You ran away Jack. I get that. I get that you're sorry and I get why you did it. But you just gallivant back like nothing's happened, your usual happy-go-lucky 'save the day' attitude while the rest of us stayed here. Give us more respect," she spat in his face before backing up and continuing to walk.

* * *

"You're not serious…" The computer screen lit his face up blue in the rather dark –and might Rex add damp- safe house. "This is the whole investigation in one file. We won't be fugitives after-"

"Did you do any research before they sent you off?"

"A little yes."

"There's no record of any Captain Jack Harkness in the last forty years in the United States or Britain."

"So?" Rex asked, not seeing the point. Esther just stared at him, expecting the thought to occur to him. "But wait, that just said…" The analyst nodded. "But why would they want to target them?"

"It's a conspiracy. It's got to be. And… we're stuck in the middle of it."

* * *

"Gwen!" Jack shouted after her. "Gwen Cooper!" The two words bit hard onto his tongue. "Gwen Cooper Williams, get back here!" God, he sounded like he was talking to his daughter. It brought memories that he had just about hidden away. Brought back the memories that Gwen was slowly forcing out.

Gwen pretended not to hear him and kept on walking so Jack came up behind her and spun her around. What greeted the Welshwoman nearly scared her to death but she kept her face calm. She'd faced aliens and monsters; she'd faced the end of the world many times. A furious, torn Jack she could handle.

"You really believe it don't you?" Jack laughed darkly in her face. "You really believe it." He laughed a bit more, breaking eye contact and turning around, pacing for a bit before spinning around to face her. "You really think that I could forget so easily. Well Gwen, _you_ give me some respect. This all I've ever known how to do, just run away and try to forget but I can't! You try it Gwen! You try to kill your grandson and watch the man you-" Jack's breath caught as he choked on tears and the growing lump in his throat. "-love…" he continued, a bit sadly, "die in your arms." He took in a shuddering breath. "This is place is like a graveyard. I can always feel the ghosts."

"Jack-"

"I got here by accident. I never should have stayed."

"But you did and here you are. I told you, one year ago –one year for me- that you couldn't run. And what did you tell me? You said to just watch you. And I did. All those moments, I did. You came back, maybe not for us, not for Earth, not on purpose but for some reason you landed here. And I know, we don't mean as much to you as he did but the Jack Harkness I knew wouldn't have ran."

"I'm not the same man."

"But part of you holds onto that and don't you let it go Harkness. Don't you dare let it go."

* * *

"Does it say anymore?" the agent asked.

"No. They've been wiped clean."

"So that's it?"

"That's it," Esther confirmed.

"But why would Britain want to get rid of them? Because they gave the children?"

"The file's dated during the days of the 456 attack."

"So Torchwood's good _and_ bad? That doesn't make any sense."

"There's no such thing as good and bad Rex. Just allies and enemies."

"Who's the Ianto guy?"

"Don't know. Anything regarding Torchwood has been wiped. I'm guessing the server went offline after whatever happened a year ago."

Rex looked up at the door. "Can we trust them?" he asked her.

"Why ask me? You're the agent."

"You're the analyst." Esther looked up and Rex smiled at her. She fought back a blush and smiled back.

The door swung open abruptly. "We're back kids," Jack joked, any trace of the argument he had with Gwen gone. It irked Gwen how the captain could act so nonchalant at times when he really wasn't. Esther slammed her computer closed.

"Got food, some water, toiletries," Gwen listed off, setting the bags on a small table in the room. "And other stuff."

"Got any instant coffee in there?" Rex asked.

Gwen and Jack froze and the two Americans wondered what was wrong. "No hot water," Gwen smiled sweetly.

* * *

**Just to be clear, no Gwack. Ugh, no. Janto fan all the way.**

**Anyway, Rex and Esther are supposed to be like Owen and Tosh replacements, same romantic trouble and everything...  
Sorry if characterizations are a bit off. I was trying to make Gwen more of a serious "I've done everything on my own since the 456" person who doesn't fancy Jack anymore.  
Jack was kind of supposed to be in denial. /shrugs/ **

**I'm thinking about writing my own version of Series 4 with what I know of the spoilers. What should my fic title be? I've got a few ideas and they're all from song titles:  
1. This Matter is Mine (Kina Grannis, the Goldfish Song)  
2. Heart and Mind (Kina Grannis, Heart and Mind)  
3. Amistad and First (The Fray, You Found Me)  
4. A Little is Enough (Kina Grannis, Stay a Little)**


	54. Pretend for a Little While

**Another drabble

* * *

**

You can control your life, but you can't control your heart. You can't control love. You can take over the world, but you can't keep the people from thinking. You can't stop the feeling; you can't stop the humanity in you.

You can pretend that you don't feel it, tell yourself that the purity of it is false. Sooner or later you'll have to face it. While he is locked in your arms in a short embrace right before the final end, you might be able to push the truth away.

But it doesn't hurt to believe that it's real.


	55. Love and Guidance Brings Him Home

**I.**  
At times he can hear a soft whisper in his ears.  
but he turns around, and nothing's  
There.  
And sometimes he hears the flutes in the wind.  
He's reaching out,  
needing a soul  
needing a friend.

**II.**  
If the seams of reality unraveled-  
If the patchwork of problems tattered-  
If the threads of sanity came undone-  
four by four  
five by five  
six by six  
Then perhaps it matters not anymore.  
For a man who knows nothing's left,  
That the reality is too much and not enough.  
That problems haunt like ghosts in a graveyard,  
Knows sanity only pushes you off the cliff into the Insane Ocean.

**III. **  
Somewhere in the wandering willows,  
and the sweeping sycamores,  
rests a painting perfectly  
Preserved with the powerful pulses of faith and belief.  
It is where the shades of musings feast  
and the waves of beasts clash.  
A perfect beauty,  
A perfect guise.

**IV.  
**Then there's a man.  
Not the Man or a Man.  
Just  
a man.  
He floats through like a shadow  
and ambles like the lost.  
But as he sails through the tempest,  
the willows wind,  
the sycamores still,  
the beasts gnaw at his bones.  
And the shades of imagination fade into the night,  
Following a journey,  
A traveler,  
Who needs no explanation of why he  
Found his will  
and saved his soul.

But we know that love and guidance brought him home.

* * *

**Poem written at the beginning of the school year. August-ish?**  
**Heavily influenced by Torchwood, obviously.**

**Sorry that I haven't been updating dears!**  
**Been running out of one-shot inspirations for Torchwood, esp. when _Miracle Day_ is coming on and it looks like sh-**  
**Well, let's not go there.**

**Another oneshot to follow!**

**I'm currently shifting my focus to longer, chapter fics.**  
**If you guys want to read about those, follow me on twitter: _morning_eve_.**  
**I like to tweet when I write, like how Moffat tweets when he watches _The X Factor_, except no one's there to read them D:**


	56. Highway Run Into a Shattered Sun

They say the old and lone walk through the night, waiting for the worlds to collide and the days to flow away. They say that they wait for the heavens to shatter above them and rain down the reward that they so desperately need –but not so much as deserve.

None of us bother to see what's out there. Sure our eyes are opened and we walk through the night, but what is it our bridge-like orbs behold? Love and beauty, pain and death but surely not the things that stand in between, waiting at Mobil Station. Waiting at the limbo, the point of nowhere and no return.

But last night…

Had we looked, we might have seen two men walking through a park. How they got there is of no concern, only the fact that the universe played out as it did. A chance meeting in which both stop for a moment.

One is shrouded in a simple long coat, looking as if he'd fought in WWII, and the other is clad in a tweed jacket adorned with a bowtie. Although the latter's dress sense seems to have worsened, a bystander cannot help but notice the air of authority around him. Even the leaves and the grass sway away as he strolls through. The world outside is a dangerous one; these men know that. They've learned it the difficult way.

The first man, in the RAF coat, slows to a halt, standing next to the other man. Their eyes do not lock, for both know what has transpired since their last meeting.

"Why is that you look younger?" the immortal asks accusingly.

"I don't have control over time," the physician replies, "much less fate."

The immortal scoffs, as if his suffering is marked by his aging. "But here you are, getting a new start. Young and new." He sounds angry, accusing maybe even a bit… guilty? "Here you are pretending-"

"-that all the horrors have happened." The man with the bowtie finally gazes at the other person. The immortal is still studying the ground in front of him.

The wind blows once and a bell is heard miles away. They both know that their meeting together has come to an end, it is until next time. Who knows how old one will be, and how young the other will look. Maybe in the end, it does not matter. They both take the same road filled with shattered shards of glass, broken bits of love, towards a midnight sun.

* * *

**Written as a prize for my DW contest on dA.  
Prompt: Jack meets 11 and comments on how young he looks.**

**Title inspired by _Faithfully_ by Journey.**

**Follow me on Twitter: _morning_eve_**


	57. The Human Element

**This used to be the first chapter of a 11 fic I was going to write titled The Human Element about a companion after Amy/Rory left.  
Then I just got bored of it (mostly because I wouldn't think of an adversary for the Doctor clever enough for Moffat) and let it sit on my hard drive that I'm not cleaning out.  
So ta-da. Just changed the name of the main character to "Anwen," Gwen and Rhys's kid.**

**No relation to the "Hope Williams" fics, although I liked the name "Hope" better. Fit with the fics more.**

* * *

Mike Davison, the self-proclaimed disrupter of class in first period advanced history, thought the new teacher was downright rubbish. The previous teacher, Mrs. Condor, had won the lottery and now here this bowtie-wearing man came sauntering in as if nothing happened. Everything would be slightly normal if only they hadn't known the Mrs. Condor didn't believe in the lottery.

The new teacher, Mr. Smith, surveyed the class, eyeing them all as if they were guilty of a crime. "Philosophers!" the teacher declared. "What a sad bunch they are. Always sitting around talking, talking, talking. If there's one thing you can't let me do, it's talk. I'll keep going on and on. You won't notice until I'm gone. Happened once actually. Call up River, she'll know. Philosophers, what a bore! Locke? Ha! _I_ gave him the idea of inalienable rights. Descartes? Kidnapped by a Time Agent to the most deserted place imaginable. Poof! 'I think therefore I am.' And _please_ don't get me started on Montesquieu! Told him about Gjokla's rule and he took it. Should have asked for credit."

One of the girls raised her hand. "That was centuries ago!"

Mr. Smith deadpanned. "I've a good memory." He truly looked like he was remembering something, probably the last time he'd used that phrase.

"Doesn't make sense," Mike muttered.

A different girl, Anwen, who sat in the front row, spoke up. "Doesn't matter as long as we pass exams."

"Yes, miss 'I can take down a footballer.'"

"Wha, you mean like you?" she asked.

"Well… tough," Mike faltered

Anwen shot him a smirk and turned back to the front of the class. Her hair caught in her face as she pushed the black locks out of the way. Her brown eyes glowered with annoyance. She twirled her pen in her hand and nodded to the teacher. "Go on," she smiled sarcastically.

The teacher fought what might have been a grimace or a frown of disapproval –or perhaps a wistful, guilty twitch of the lips- but he clapped his hands together and exclaimed "Right then! Rules of the classroom, I'm talking, you're not. I know billions of languages and if there's one thing I'm able to do, it's talk talk talk. Everyone clear? Good. Now your old teacher had journals? Forget about them. Now you," he pointed right at Anwen again. "Up, front of the class."

Anwen slumped in her chair. "Why?"

"Philosophers. Get up here and _philosophize _for us. Ramble on and hope it makes sense." Mr. Smith smiled and sat down behind the teacher's computer desk. He dropped his feet on the table and leaned back in his chair.

Anwen slowly got up, very reluctantly, and situated herself in front of the whiteboard. Her hands hung from her front pockets and she leaned her body on right foot. "Well…" she began, "Mike-"

"Besides the obvious," Mr. Smith interrupted testily. "Just talk. Say something that doesn't make any sense." He ended his statement with a dramatic wave of the arms.

"Life doesn't make sense."

"Good," the new teacher smiled. "Now run with it."

Anwen gave a small roll of her eyes and shifted the weight of her body. "Does it ever bother you," she started, staring at the poster of the moon and Earth on the back wall, "that your life doesn't make any sense? There are bits and pieces snatched from out of the timeline. You feel déjà vu when you shouldn't and everyday is the same. Wake up, brush your teeth, breakfast, school, lunch, homework, dinner, sleep. Wake up and repeat. We're all so little and the people out there say that _our_ generation will change the world, that we'll turn the age.

Anwen scrutinized the moon in the poster she was inspecting every so often. "In 1969, we landed a man on the moon. In 2005, Britain blasted a ship out of the sky. And later that year, the ghosts filled the world. London was nearly destroyed. 2008, a starship nearly slammed into Buckingham palace. And who doesn't remember President-elect Winters getting assassinated –even if they were their? For those of you who have older siblings, who doesn't remember the terror of the children? Every single child in the world, every prepubescent kid, talking in unison, all speaking perfect English, all facing London. And for a moment, the entire world stood still.

"My mum, she was there. She's up in the high with all those presidents and prime ministers and kings and queens –mingled in with the government and all that alien business. She talks about -_they_ talk about- the Doctor, man's greatest asset. That he'll come in and save the day."

"So why didn't he come?" she asked. "Because he's just a fairytale. He's their knight in shining armor, except they don't believe it. If they did, then they wouldn't need _us_ to change the world.

"We change the world, we destroy it. There isn't enough time to do anything. Not enough space to build up. Not enough power to prepare to defend the Earth against all that is out there."

"And what if," Mr. Smith interrupted with that wistful look again, "you had all the time in the world?"

"Doesn't matter," Anwen replied with a shrug of her arms. Her hands rested inside the pocket of her jeans. "Because we don't. No use in dreaming after something we don't have. We'll just have to grin and bear it while knowing somebody out there could have helped."

"What if he couldn't?"

The class could see that this was becoming an argument between teacher and student.

"Well it'd have been real nice of him to drop by with a few condolences and explanations," Anwen responded tetchily, noting her presentation be over and taking a seat at her desk without asking for permission.

Mr. Smith gave a small, whispering snort. "Your mother put you up to this didn't she?"

"No need." Anwen stared her teacher down. "It's something I've always wanted to say."

* * *

**And if you haven't figured out who Mr. Smith is, shame on you!**

**Follow me for updates on twitter: _morning_eve_**


	58. Leave a Rose For What Might Have Been

**_You're ashamed about all your fears and doubts and how I hurt you.  
Can you make it back from the aftermath and how I left you?_**

Sometimes, Jack wonders what it's like in the 51st century. How things are getting along, how man genocides, how man wars, how many people getting knocked up each night and not really caring. Because in the 51st century you can try and try again until you finally drop. He remembers when his childhood sweetheart back on the Boeshane Peninsula was first recruited by the Time Agency. The two of them were quickly separated, she was killed in a mission. He was heartbroken.

But 51st was different. You forgot as quickly as you remembered. Life was too short; time was an illusion.

**_Nobody wants to be alone with the fear of letting go.  
If you could hear me say it's gonna be okay, would you be okay?_**

Nothing mattered.

**_And though I've gone away, I still see what you're going through.  
It kills me every day to know I killed what meant most to you.  
So when you pass my grave, leave a rose for what might have been,  
But know that it`s okay to shed your fears and find love again._**

But when you have all the time in the world, does it matter then? Every grain of sand that slips through an hourglass is like a bullet digging through your skin. It's like your best friend hanging on a the edge of the cliff and they're slipping, _slippingslippingslipping_, because you're not strong enough to pull them up. And you know he's going to fall, and he knows he's going to fall, but before that you just cling onto some kind of false hope because you don't want your most precious thing to be torn away from you. You don't want to have to think. You just want to believe.

**_For better or worse you're the one I never thought I'd hurt,  
but looking back on these dreams nothing is what it seems.  
Know that you__'ll wake up to better things._**

Believe that there are better things in life then just getting drunk and partying out late.

That's what Jack gave the moment the millennium turned. That maybe these people out there, these ordinary people who wanted to make a difference, could get their wish granted. So maybe the immortal could finally push aside emotions and bury them in deep. After all, they were just _people_. They'd work, fight and at the end of the day they could go home and sleep and press repeat.

But again, life was too short.

But now, time was not a delusion.

**___And though I've gone away, I still see what you're going through.  
It kills me every day to know I killed what meant most to you.  
So when you pass my grave, leave a rose for what might have been,  
But know that it`s okay to shed your fears and find love again._**

It's like what Jack thinks about with the Doctor. After all this time, all the running, the fighting, all the pain and hurt and death, you'd think you'd get used to it. That eventually you'll become numb. Maybe for once, death doesn't strike the heart. Just maybe it breaks a hand instead, or dislocates the shoulder. But not the heart, _anything_ but the heart.

Promises and hope are shattered in the form of a nuclear meltdown, in a bullet, in chloroform, in a virus.

Hearts broken in love, laying in arms, flowing in held back tears, said in _don't_.

_**I hear you say, "I don't know how and I don't know why,"**  
**but there will come one day when I will tell you all the things inside.**  
**Just know there's someone above you to help you.**_

"It's not fair," Jack mutters and a star up above twinkles in agreement. A hand on his shoulder confirms it and a man with a stranger's face sits down next to him in front of a grey slab of stone -probably the most important thing in the first entire decade of the 21st century. Probably in forever.

"Never will be."

**___And though I've gone away, I still see what you're going through._**

"But they're still watching, _he's_ still watching," the stranger explains, pointing up at the city-light polluted sky.

**___It kills me every day to know I killed what meant most to you._**

"Then my heart's up there too," Jack bitterly counters. "Floating in space gravity, suffocating in no atmosphere."

**___So when you pass my grave, leave a rose for what might have been,_**

The stranger lets out a laugh. "It's still beating, and as long as it still beats, the stars will continue to shine."

A single rose lies in front of the tombstone, a material epitaph. The stranger gives a soft smile to the flower, as if sharing an inside joke with it.

"Was this how it was like, for you?" Jack asks timidly, and suddenly he's not the strong, innuendo-flinging Time Agent anymore. He's just ordinary, like everyone else, but not really.

"For me?" the stranger echoes. "Well..." He smiles. "I've learned," he replies, "that everything will turn out right in the end."

**___But know that it`s okay to shed your fears and find love again._**

* * *

This song is Briane by Boyce Avenue.  
When I first heard this song, I immediately thought "JANTO!" but I couldn't come up with a fic.  
So here it is.

I'm truly running out of prompts.  
Maybe you guys could suggest some in reviews? xD

However, be sure to expect more updates here when Miracle Day arrives.  
They're probably be justifications to ANY Gwack that is so much as _hinted_ on that show.  
(Gwack is never justified, FYI. Not until Ianto says it is).  
jkjk, but they'll be fix-its to any horrors Miracle Day brings.


	59. Phoenix

**I'm back baby. Here be spoilers for The House of the Dead. I posted this is a separate story as well.**

**Also, I always knew Jack never went to the funeral. Just sayin'**

* * *

He was beautiful.

Almost like the last time Jack ever saw him. Impeccable suit, nasty scar gone. Those captivating eyes, those straight lips. And he was just _there_ –waiting- like it was another Torchwood mission, so _glad_ and relieved that Jack had finally showed up and when Jack looked at him…

His heart skipped a beat and broke. Ianto Jones, the bravest man on Earth, ready for battle, ready to die again. But there was just so much relief running through Jack's mind. He even pulled Ianto in for that brief hug just to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming.

It was real. _He_ was real. Real as could be. Warmth, not coldness. Warmth. Real flesh and blood. Real mind and consciousness. Separate. Real. Living.

In all honesty, it was too much. Jack couldn't handle it. But oh, just looking at Ianto, that smile, that deadpan expression, it mended a little part of Jack's heart. Jack had other lovers before. John Hart had been one –and what a wonder it turned out the way it did. There had been Lucia. She was a pretty woman, strong-willed, rather sassy. Though they married, Lucia grew increasingly distant until she finally asked Jack to leave. She couldn't handle Jack's Torchwood. Torchwood with little boundaries, Torchwood with so many risks.

She couldn't handle immortal Jack.

But Ianto could and it was strange to think that Ianto hated Jack before. Looking at them after the Abaddon incident, you could never tell. Sure Jack was immortal, that was the price that came with falling in love with Torchwood Cardiff's boss. But in all those nights, all those quiet afterglows in Jack's bunker or at Ianto's flat, Jack slowly gave his heart, memory by memory, confession by confession.

Immortal or not, Jack was still human. That was something Ianto grew to understand. Jack was still like the rest of them in mind, if not in body. There were still regrets and mistakes beneath the smiles and the large façade. Keeping them bottled up for hundreds, if not _thousands_ of years, did a man harm.

All that time Jack had been so scared. He knew it was dangerous, handing himself over like that, wearing his heart on his sleeve in front of Ianto. But for once, he had catharsis. He had someone who would listen and not judge.

Ianto's father knew that. He could see it in Jack's eyes, past he young and unwrinkled face. Mr. Jones bore into Jack's soul and saw the love layered with complete desperation resting there. He saw the pain Jack harbored, but he also saw the last sliver of purity left.

It was stained with selfish desire. Saving the world… but losing himself in the process. Eternal oblivion was the next best thing for death to Jack.

As the secrets were revealed, Ianto realized it –the selfishness. In his fit of anger, he couldn't rationalize it. He merely lashed out. Slowly, it dawned on him. He saw the tears forming in Jack's eyes. He heard the angry words full of regret. _The only one I wanted to see was you._ He felt the defeat. _The world was empty because you were gone._

Ianto had questioned it before, but now… Now there was no doubt.

_Captain Jack Harkness loved him._

What was a man to do? Love or conscience? But Ianto loved Jack, loved him with all his heart and though he couldn't bear to think that Jack would lose everyone forever, he knew that if they just walked away, they would both regret it –Jack more so than himself.

It hurt to watch.

It hurt for Ianto to watch the understanding make its way across Jack's face in the Welsh moonlight. It hurt even more to see Jack realize he would lose him all over again, be alone again.

But most of all, it hurt knowing that he was putting Jack in this pain.

Ianto even tried to joke about it, but Jack wouldn't let it go. He kept pleading, but they both knew how this was going to end. Grief, disaster. But…

"_I never said it properly before."_

"_Doesn't need saying."_ Because it really didn't. Ianto knew how Jack felt about words. When you said them, there was no going back. It was out there; you couldn't swallow them again.

"_Yes it does!" _Ianto could see the emotion burning and blazing like phoenix in Jack's eyes. _"Ianto Jones…"_ The name rolled off Jack's tongue, the last time Ianto would ever hear them that way. _"I love you."_

Ianto wasn't letting him have the last word. _"And I love you too Jack."_

The time passed and stars died. Years later –only the Doctor knows how long really- Jack Harkness stood in a room with Gwen Cooper and her husband, with three other brilliant people. One of them, the Americans, will make an off-handish comment about love. Gwen will look over at Jack, to see if he's okay and the Americans will follow suit, confused about if it was something they said.

And they'll see that sad, reminiscing look flicker across Captain Harkness's face, only to be replaced by a small, gentle smile.

Though the Rift is closed, through they are miles away, they'll hear the words uttered that night.

"_Ianto Jones… I love you."_

* * *

**I might write another fix-it oneshot, just to get back in the groove of Torchwood fanfics but I won't mean anything by it. I am a hardcore Janto shipper, but I respect Russell's decision to kill Ianto. Though it's sad, it's a huge testament not just to Jack's character, but to Ianto's as well. **

**And as said in the oneshot, about all of Jack's previous lovers, I believe Ianto was the most special. Sure Jack could have loved them all, but there had to be those who couldn't quite accept Jack for who he was (e.g. Alice's mother). That, added with the fact the only one Jack wanted to see was Ianto… Well, you finish the sentence. **

**Maybe I can watch Miracle Day without getting mad at RTD now. James Goss, I love you so much.**


End file.
